How do I line up two settlement dates?

The same day approach

On the day, your lawyer receives the proceeds of the sale, repays your mortgage, and applies the balance to the purchase along with any new lending. It is routine and it is done constantly. It is also a chain, so a delay anywhere in it delays everything after it.

Leave slack in the day rather than relying on the timing. Same day settlements run against bank cut off times, so a hold up on your sale in the afternoon can push your purchase to the next working day. Keys, movers and somewhere to sleep should not depend on money arriving by mid afternoon.

Setting the dates

The order matters. Fix the settlement date on your sale first, then negotiate the purchase around it. Doing it the other way means asking your buyer to move to suit you, and they may have a chain of their own.

• Allow time for your buyer's bank to be ready, not just your own.
• If the property you are selling is tenanted, allow for the notice period, which cannot start running until your sale is unconditional.
• If either property is a unit title, the pre settlement disclosure statement is due no later than the fifth working day before settlement, and it depends on the body corporate.
• Avoid dates that sit immediately before a long weekend or inside the Christmas closedown.
• Where a date has to move later, it is agreed between the parties through the lawyers. It is never assumed.

When the dates cannot match

If the purchase settles first, you own two properties for the gap and you need the money to do it, which usually means bridging finance approved before you commit.

If the sale settles first, you need somewhere to live and somewhere to put your things. That is manageable for a week and expensive for a season.

A gap in either direction costs money, and it is far cheaper to solve with a date than with a loan or a rental. That is the argument for negotiating the dates hard at the start, when they are free, rather than at settlement, when they are not.