Selling your current chapter, selling a home in Calgary

The Chapters

The listing photographs get taken on a Tuesday morning, and by then the decisions the sale turns on have already been made. Which room got painted. Whether the survey was ordered in June or in the week the offer landed. What the seller said when somebody asked a direct question. Which documents were requested, and when. A house sells at a price. It gets priced by everything that happened before the photographer arrived.

The agreement that starts the sale

An Alberta licensee cannot represent a seller as a client without a written service agreement, and the agreement spells out what the licensee will do and how they are paid. RECA draws the line between a client, who has signed one and is owed representation in their best interests, and a customer, who has not. Read the clause about payment before the clause about marketing, since payment is the part that binds after the enthusiasm wears off. The Real Estate Council of Alberta also runs a public tool called ProCheck, where anybody can confirm a licensee holds a current licence and which one, before a first conversation happens.

Where the disclosure duty starts and stops

A seller who knows about a material latent defect has to tell their licensee and cannot hide or misrepresent the condition of the property. RECA describes a material latent defect as a physical problem not visible during a viewing or an inspection, of the kind that makes a home unsafe to live in or unfit for the purpose the seller knows it was bought for. The licensee has to pass it on. Stigma runs on a different rule. A seller is not legally required to disclose a stigma attached to a property, and a licensee cannot disclose one without the seller's permission. What a seller cannot do is answer a direct question untruthfully. Once an answer is given it is given.

The survey is the long pole

A Real Property Report shows the lot boundaries and where every structure sits against them, meaning the house, the deck, the shed, the fence and the retaining wall. Only an Alberta Land Surveyor can prepare one, and only a surveyor can update one. A Certificate of Compliance is The City of Calgary confirming those positions comply with the Land Use Bylaw. The City requires neither and says so on its own page, then adds that standard purchase contracts often require the seller to obtain a compliance certificate. Online, a low density residential application is typically reviewed inside a day or two, with up to fourteen more days where further review is needed. The survey underneath it takes as long as the surveyor takes. Compliance is also where an encroachment into City land or a right-of-way surfaces, which is a problem with a solution in June and a crisis in the week conditions are due. Order it early. It is the cheapest reversal on this page.

The measurement and the assessment are two different numbers

The square footage a seller remembers is not always the number that goes on the listing. Alberta's Residential Measurement Standard requires licensees to measure and advertise on one method, counting floor levels entirely above grade, excluding any level with a portion below grade, running to within two per cent, with a floor-to-ceiling minimum of 2.13 metres. A developed basement is real living space and it sits outside that number. The assessment is a different number again. Calgary sends assessments every January, estimating market value as of July 1 of the year before, so an assessment describes a house at a moment already six months gone by the time the envelope lands.

A condominium seller depends on somebody else's clock

On the written request of an owner, a purchaser, a mortgagee, or a solicitor acting for any of them, an Alberta condominium corporation has ten days to provide the prescribed documents, and the same ten days to produce an estoppel certificate. Ten days is a ceiling rather than a pace, and a buyer's condition period keeps running while a corporation uses all of it. Requesting the package before the listing goes up removes the one delay a seller cannot argue with.

What happens after the keys

Possession does not end the paperwork. A TIPP agreement attaches to the property rather than to the person, so a seller cancels it, and The City wants that cancellation by the 22nd of the month before the next payment comes out. The property tax adjustment between buyer and seller is usually sorted by the lawyers, and the adjustment statement is the document to read closely. Title moves on its own schedule after that. Land Titles processes documents in the order received, and the province closed its Calgary and Edmonton counters to work through a backlog, saying they reopen once registration turnaround falls below thirty business days.

Where to start Selling well is mostly sequencing, and sequencing is the part you control outright.

Selling well is mostly sequencing, and sequencing is the part a seller controls outright. Our sellers page covers how we approach a listing. The full neighbourhoods index carries a page and a post for every Calgary community we guide, which is where a seller can read how their own street gets written about. The first home chapter is what the buyer on the other side of the table is reading. When the question narrows to one address and one calendar, start the conversation.