The sale of my property in Balingup was simple and straight forward to start with - John Pitman found a buyer within 1 week of advertising. The buyer had finance approval and Settlement was set for 6 Jan - but it all quickly became very complicated (a) The Shire of Donnybrook questioned minor alterations inside the property and dug its heels in only about 4 weeks before the Xmas break to require a retrospective building approval application (b) This required a Certified Builder to first inspect the property but he was not available till early Jan, but in any case, before he could certify the application, he first needed a draftsman to inspect and re-draw plans for the house (c) which caused John Pitman to defer settlement till end Jan (all agreed that was very prudent) (d) The Builder certified there was no issue with the property (e) During this time the Shire's Building Inspector, without giving any prior advice to any of the parties or settlement agents, decided to take his annual holidays till mid Jan (e) causing John Pitman to again defer settlement safely till mid-February - which all parties again agreed was very prudent - (f) Then surprise, surprise, the buyer, without any prior advice on their part, advised they had a commitment to a month's holiday to Brazil to see the wife's parents and could have settled, but opted not to settle on the agreed date (g) This advice then exposed the wife to not have Australian citizenship and was not allowed to acquire any real estate (h) The buyer's settlement agent had no prior awareness of this and had to then amend their finance approval to transfer the wife's intended 50% share of the purchase to the husband to now become the sole buyer (i) Whilst all of this was occurring John Pitman had to then set yet another settlement date to occur well after the buyer returned from their holiday. Eventually, settlement occurred early in March. Thanks John for "keeping real cool, calm and collected" . B
John Pitman
