Times are tough these days for middle income earners. We took years to save enough just to buy a house of our own, and mostly are only able to afford a middle class condo in prime areas of PJ or KL area. Nothing seems to be less than RM400/psf in all these prime areas unless you're talking about low cost houses or those which is pretty far.
We spent most of our savings on the deposit for the house, lawyer fees etc and nothing much left for renovation. Maybe some prefer to buy a sub-sale house with everything done including fittings and fixtures, but some prefer to buy a new bare unit instead of repairing old stuffs which might cost as much as well. But bare in mind that the lawyer fee and stamping fee for a subsale can be really costly.
There's 2 sides of lawyer fee that you will be paying which is one for the S&P and the other one for the loan. In my case, I paid close to 15k for the S&P stamping and lawyer fees and about 10k for evaluation and loan agreement. Therefore, before you laid your signature on the booking form, you better have all these budget calculated.
Subsale Property from Signing of Booking Form to S&P to Key Handover, HOW?
1. Decided on the property to purchase and signed the booking form.
Normally the agent wouldn't return you the booking form immediately and you're expected to prepare a cheque of 2-3% as a deposit from the 10% downpayment for the house. The agent will then bring this booking form and cheque to the owner and the owner to sign the booking form. The agreement is only counted as legal and binding when the seller accepted the offer.
Be very careful after you sign the booking form. Calculate the time given, which is normally 2 weeks. Clarify with the seller or agent if this 2 weeks are including weekends and public holiday (normally they don't take account). Your deposit can be forfeited if you do not have your loan approval by then. I've met a conman as such, giving all kinds of excuses for the delay. Worse case, lay down this clause to protect yourself before you sign the booking form "Earnest deposit will be refunded fully if loan fails".
2. Application for loan with bank (Skip this if you're rich enough to settle with cash)
You should already have a list of bankers on hand or some introduced by the property agents, prepare all the necessary documents to be submitted to the bankers. Normally they will ask you for these documents: Booking form, previous S&P, Copy of IC, 3 months of payslip, latest EPF statements, bank statements showing your montly salary (must be certified by bank), any other supporting documents like FD, Amanah Saham and if your employment length is less than a year in the current company, they will ask you for your confirmation letter.
Bank statements: Savings account don't normally have up to date bank statements. You need to head over to bank and request from the officer to print. There will be a fee that's being charge either by per page or a one time fee plus per page charge. Some bank takes half a day to 1 day to produce statements.
Martial status: Most of the bank will not ask the marriage cert from you, but advised to tick as husband and wife on the form or they might question you due to some complications involved.
3. Engage your own S&P Lawyer
Advise to engage your own S&P lawyer to deal with all these matters. In case of any disputes, your S&P lawyer will stand to protect your rights. Don't engage the same lawyer with your seller, there might be a conflict of interest.
Your S&P lawyer will be asking for the previous copy of the S&P signed. He/She will be preparing a draft copy of the S&P while you get your loan approved.
4. Loan approval
Once you've provided sufficient documents to your banker, normally the approval only takes about 1-3 working days. My experience was really pleasant with Maybank, they only took 1 day and the next day I got a 90% full semi-flexi loan approval on my phone via SMS with BLR -2.4. Some other banks with full flexi came out with clauses that says I need to deposit xx amount in FD for 3-6 months in order to enjoy a higher BLR rate.
You will then pick the loan that you wish to take, and then sign off the loan agreement with your banker.
5. Finalising S&P and Loan agreement
Normally for loan agreement your banker will have you go with their appointed panel lawyer. Each bank will have a list of panel lawyer firms that they appoint to get the loan agreement done. I'm lucky enough to have my S&P law firm to be under Maybank's panel and both of agreements were done by the same firm which speed up the process.
Your S&P lawyer will take on most of the things from then onwards including liaising with your seller to obtain the necessary documents ie Deed of Assignment etc. A date will be arrange with the seller and yourself to get the S&P sign within the timeline.
Upon signing the S&P, you will be given 3+1 month to complete the whole process until key handover. For subsale, the chances of delay and dragging on the process is pretty high, some even take about 6 to 9 months to complete the process.
In our case, I would have to give credit to my S&P lawyer, he's diligent and follow-up closely in obtaining the documents. He would always be the one chasing me for documents, instead of myself asking him for updates. My seller got a bit annoyed, because he constantly chase them to get the things done. You really need such a lawyer to get things done. He even helped to arrange for us to sign both the S&P and loan agreement on the same day, saving us a lot of trouble.
6. Almost there
You're almost there. Your lawyer will redeem the necessary documents from the previous bank of your seller and assign the power of attorney. Your seller should have paid up all the maintenance fees, water bills, electricity bills, insurance... and apportionment will be done accordingly.
Power of Attorney (PA) is a power given by the land owners to someone to act on behalf of the owner including signing all documents, transfer, caveat, charge etc (if full power is given).
Finally, when the long and tedious process comes to an end, you will be getting your keys.
Next: Withdrawal of EPF
