Buying a ppty without taking loan

[mermaid]

If a person buys a pte ppty (BUC) without taking loan, Can the buyer dun hire a lawyer & deal with the developer directly?
Any bros & sis hv such experience b4 kindly advise.
TIA.

[indomie]

Lawyers are always involve

[sherlock]

Dun think the developer will deal with the buyer directly if it is BUC

[lot286]

impossible. need lawyer for other non-loan related stuff like caveat search, memo of transfer (MOT), etc etc

[ysyap]

Not forgetting if you need to use your cpf funds, also need lawyers...

[hopeful]

google is your friend.
the gist is layman now cannot DIY conveyancing.
the article writer is hardly a neutral party .
if later allowed to DIY conveyancing, I think buy direct from developer safer than buy subsale, resale.
http://www.lawgazette.com.sg/2003-9/Sep03-feature5.htm

Conveyancing by the Layman?

This article lays out the often unseen details that go into conveyancing practice and why it is not as straightforward as many assume it to be.

As expected, the liberalisation of conveyancing fees is playing itself out quite dramatically. With the way such legal fees are moving, it may soon become not economically viable for solicitors to undertake conveyancing work. Legal fees for conveyancing in Singapore have progressively been heading south and are still moving towards a literal bottomless pit. The reality is such fees have over the past few years been touted as freebies by some institutions promoting their own services and products. This may perhaps be an appropriate time for the Law Society to revisit the issue of separate representation for conveyancing. Such a move will have significant impact on containing the practice where various legal fees are packaged in an attractive discount for the clients and where economies of scale are said to benefit the consumer. Should an assembly-line type of conveyancing practice be encouraged — one where the economic survival of a practice depends on the numbers count of the cases secured?

It does not come as any surprise therefore that in June this year a Straits Times reader wrote in to question why conveyancing could not be undertaken by a layman. Their UK and Australian counterparts are already doing so. Such murmurings are also becoming louder among the other professions who are keen to break the monopoly held by the legal profession for conveyancing practice.

There is the perception that the public is sufficiently educated to complete and handle registration forms for conveyancing transactions. A more significant concern is that there could be savings to be had. It seems that low fees are not quite enough. The public is now looking for ‘no fees’.

With the age of computerisation and the internet, and the proliferation of information (not necessarily knowledge), it is indeed tempting to go the DIY way especially in such a practice like conveyancing where it is presumed that all the skills needed are the ability to read and write. Perhaps the days are not far when architects will also have to consider surrendering their monopoly when the CAD software is all that is required for the preparation of plans for submission to the authorities. For now we will examine the basic matters which the public will be required to deal with if their wish to replace the services rendered by conveyancers is to be seriously considered by the authorities. Meanwhile, the checklist below sets out the extent to which the layman will have to commit his time and skill in undertaking his own conveyancing task.

The Layman’s Checklist
The layman will have to concern himself and deal with these matters among others:

• attend to his own negotiations with the estate agent and the seller over the sale or purchase terms;
• check on legal implications of eligibility status;
• source for his own financing and negotiate with the financial institutions and decide for himself on the various loans available or appropriate for his transaction;
• attend to the preliminary application for the utilisation of CPF money including any re-financing facility required;
• make his electronic searches to several appropriate government departments;
• peruse and understand the implications of the replies to the requisitions and deal with any adverse replies;
• peruse all relevant road and drainage plans and follow up on any schemes indicated;
• consult a surveyor or other professionals on matters affecting land areas, road expansion or encroachments or planning requirements and compliance;
• make his title search at the land office, peruse the search result and advise himself on the legal issues of title, encumbrances, cautions, notices, encroachments, restrictions, covenants conditions and probate;
• acquaint himself with the Law Society Conditions of Sale 1999 and make a check list of potential pitfalls where industry practice has encountered grey areas on issues like GST, insurance, conditions sales and latent defects and encroachments;
• draft, peruse or approve the Sale and Purchase Agreement and verify the Inventory list, if any;
• lodge a caveat or more than one caveat where necessary and ensure that such caveats do not make false or inaccurate claims;
• apply for the necessary consents, permits and approvals from the authorities and various parties involved;
• attend to the electronic stamping of the relevant documents within the prescribed deadline;
• decide on the appropriate final documents to be prepared bearing in mind that some property may not have the Certificate of Title issued yet;
• attend to the security documents required by financial institutions and the CPF Board;
• prepare and complete title reports to banks if mortgage work is also undertaken;
• attend to progress payments to be collected or paid as the case may be; these matters may have to be kept in view — sometimes for as long as two to three years;
• deal with the Singapore Academy of Law on the procedure for deposit/withdrawal of stakeholder money;
• prepare Completion Statement taking into account apportionment of property tax, maintenance fees, capital levy and moneys earmarked for present and future disbursement;
• co-ordinate and attend to the simultaneous completion of the purchase, sale, mortgage and CPF financing;
• ensure prompt registration of relevant documents according to agreed priority arrangements as may be agreed between the mortgagee and the CPF Board;
• prepare and send out post-completion notices to the property tax department, Commissioner of Lands, solicitors for the seller, MCST, Registrar of Companies, etc;
• ensure that all compliance requirements are satisfied under related legislation like the Residential Properties Act (Cap 274), Sale of Commercial Properties Act (Cap 281), Trustees Act (Cap 337), Land Titles Act (Cap 157), Land Titles Strata Act (Cap 158), the Companies Act (Cap 50), Executive Condominium Housing Scheme Act (Cap 994) etc (not inclusive); and
• bear in mind that en-bloc sale transactions are subject to a specific set of procedures, compliance requirements and market practices — quite different from a normal sale and purchase.

The Recourse Issue
Having overcome the logistics of the conveyancing transaction, the underlying concern of the layman will be directed to the question of recourse.

The legal profession’s Professional Indemnity Insurance, the Law Society Compensation Fund and the Legal Profession Conduct Rules are representative of the recourse channels open to the layman. They protect the client from loss in proper claims involving the legal profession.

The negotiating skills of conveyancers are intangibles, which the layman sometimes overlooks. Clauses in Agreements as well as those set out as industry practices under the Law Society General Conditions of 1999 have a history going back to 1936 and further beyond to the English Common Law. Furthermore, there are various cross-references to other applicable laws and regulations which only a trained lawyer would have the skill and could invest the time to fully investigate. Consider therefore the concept of outsourcing. This is not a new phenomenon.

The lawyer’s role in pre-empting problems and their trouble-shooting skills are sometimes discounted. They do have economic value. Unfortunately, this is often realised too late — when matters go wrong.
The Other Scenario
Consider the other scenario if this public wish for the conveyancing practice to be ‘de-monopolised’ is to be seriously mooted. So perhaps the government may one day ‘simplify’ the land and registration systems and decree that property registration may go the way of the motor vehicle registration. A massive systems revamp will be necessary. It has taken the government close to 30 years to finally convert all land and real property to the Land Titles System from the twin Common Law and Torrens Systems. More significantly, a centralised government department to implement and maintain a simplified registration system would also possibly mean the introduction of a regime of penalty for bad practices — to keep in check fraud, negligence and other anti-social practices over a wider cohort of non-professional participants. This will cast a different tone altogether to the conveyancing practice when a prescribed standard of compliance can be expected to be implemented to ensure smooth administrative efficiency.

The layman will also no longer be entitled to invoke the protection otherwise accorded to them by the legal profession. Underscoring the measures put in place by the legal profession in terms of the indemnity and compensation scheme and arbitration facility is the assurance that should there be any negligence or oversight, the clients’ loss will be minimised or even fully indemnified. More importantly, implicit in the services rendered, the legal profession effectively provides a form of title insurance to their clients in the conveyancing work undertaken. In his DIY undertaking the layman will not avail himself of this protection. He would have shifted the responsibility to himself and perhaps to an insurer. The actuaries should be able to show him the arithmetic for doing so.

There is no doubt that land and property has traditionally been a major asset in Singapore and will continue to be so. There should be adequate protection for such assets. Consider the risk of stress and loss when parties are not able to fulfil their contractual obligations to render good title, overlook a defect, resort to gazumping or gazundering or are late in completing the transactions. The legal jurisprudence implied in State intervention of a penal nature over civil infringements must be carefully weighed against the expediency and cost-savings benefits of any DIY undertakings. There are indeed certain trade-offs to be borne in these equations.
Postscript
Specialised tasks like administering medication and tooth extraction have traditionally been undertaken by the native medicine man and the village people alike with some measure of success. In these times, our urban homme with information available to him at the click of the mouse definitely has an advantage in such DIY tasks over his native counterpart. However, in his zeal and penny-pinching obsession, he must first consider his priorities and view the bigger picture before he ventures into the present conveyancing minefield where even some brothers-in-law in other legal disciplines may still fear to tread.

Hairani Saban Hardjoe
Chung Tan & Partners
E-mail: [email protected]

[mermaid]

the gist is layman can DIY conveyancing, but be aware of dangers lo.

wah piang! if layman is capable of handling the above, I suppose he has potential to apply for a lawyer license liao

[hopeful]

wah piang! if layman is capable of handling the above, I suppose he has potential to apply for a lawyer license liao

if buy direct from licensed developer,
the checklist is reduced to the terms in bold.
not so difficult if buy direct from developer

• attend to his own negotiations with the estate agent and the seller over the sale or purchase terms;
• check on legal implications of eligibility status;
• source for his own financing and negotiate with the financial institutions and decide for himself on the various loans available or appropriate for his transaction;
• attend to the preliminary application for the utilisation of CPF money including any re-financing facility required;
• make his electronic searches to several appropriate government departments;
• peruse and understand the implications of the replies to the requisitions and deal with any adverse replies;
• peruse all relevant road and drainage plans and follow up on any schemes indicated;
• consult a surveyor or other professionals on matters affecting land areas, road expansion or encroachments or planning requirements and compliance;
• make his title search at the land office, peruse the search result and advise himself on the legal issues of title, encumbrances, cautions, notices, encroachments, restrictions, covenants conditions and probate;
• acquaint himself with the Law Society Conditions of Sale 1999 and make a check list of potential pitfalls where industry practice has encountered grey areas on issues like GST, insurance, conditions sales and latent defects and encroachments;
• draft, peruse or approve the Sale and Purchase Agreement and verify the Inventory list, if any;
• lodge a caveat or more than one caveat where necessary and ensure that such caveats do not make false or inaccurate claims;
• apply for the necessary consents, permits and approvals from the authorities and various parties involved;
• attend to the electronic stamping of the relevant documents within the prescribed deadline;
• decide on the appropriate final documents to be prepared bearing in mind that some property may not have the Certificate of Title issued yet;
• attend to the security documents required by financial institutions and the CPF Board;
• prepare and complete title reports to banks if mortgage work is also undertaken;
• attend to progress payments to be collected or paid as the case may be; these matters may have to be kept in view — sometimes for as long as two to three years;
• deal with the Singapore Academy of Law on the procedure for deposit/withdrawal of stakeholder money;
• prepare Completion Statement taking into account apportionment of property tax, maintenance fees, capital levy and moneys earmarked for present and future disbursement;
• co-ordinate and attend to the simultaneous completion of the purchase, sale, mortgage and CPF financing;
• ensure prompt registration of relevant documents according to agreed priority arrangements as may be agreed between the mortgagee and the CPF Board;
• prepare and send out post-completion notices to the property tax department, Commissioner of Lands, solicitors for the seller, MCST, Registrar of Companies, etc;
• ensure that all compliance requirements are satisfied under related legislation like the Residential Properties Act (Cap 274), Sale of Commercial Properties Act (Cap 281), Trustees Act (Cap 337), Land Titles Act (Cap 157), Land Titles Strata Act (Cap 158), the Companies Act (Cap 50), Executive Condominium Housing Scheme Act (Cap 994) etc (not inclusive); and
• bear in mind that en-bloc sale transactions are subject to a specific set of procedures, compliance requirements and market practices — quite different from a normal sale and purchase.

[Regulators]

Any tom dick or harry is capable of learning how to do conveyancing, but to practice coconveyancing , u need to be a lawyer or a licensed conveyancer.

[sh]

If you can afford to buy a property without loan, you can afford to spend the additional 3k for lawyer. Can sleep better at night... Priceless....

[mermaid]

If you can afford to buy a property without loan, you can afford to spend the additional 3k for lawyer. Can sleep better at night... Priceless....

no lah, I dun mean to scrimp on the lawyers' fees. Juz tat initially I tot if no use cpf, not taking loan by rite we can pay direct to developers mah, haha

[yuppieboy]

Actually, property conveyancing is pretty straight forward job, although we have to engage lawyers to do the job, they are just to simply provide their signatures to legal documents... in fact, most of the liaising and conveyancing works are done by their administrative clerks.

[ysyap]

Actually, property conveyancing is pretty straight forward job, although we have to engage lawyers to do the job, they are just to simply provide their signatures to legal documents... in fact, most of the liaising and conveyancing works are done by their administrative clerks.

Yup... these lawyers basically put their names in the hands of their clerks. Anything gone wrong, its the lawyers in the frontline, not the clerks...

[wirehtc]

Yup... these lawyers basically put their names in the hands of their clerks. Anything gone wrong, its the lawyers in the frontline, not the clerks...

Standard documents and procedures. Hard to get wrong. Pay lawyer fees and get clerk service. Easier to chop property buyers than carrots.

[relax88]

What if the lawyer run away with money

[DKSG]

no lah, I dun mean to scrimp on the lawyers' fees. Juz tat initially I tot if no use cpf, not taking loan by rite we can pay direct to developers mah, haha

Mermaid is indeed one of the tycoons hanging around in this forum!

DKSG

[mcmlxxvi]

What if the lawyer run away with money

Likelihood reduced nowadays as monies to be paid to conveyancing accounts instead of lawyers'.