Convex Legal · Convex Accounting
Wellington · Porirua · Hutt Valley Property, Commercial & Trust Lawyers Est. 2016
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Guide

Conditions

Conditions

To feel confident when putting in an offer, make sure you’ve included all the required conditions to protect yourself.

When putting in an offer on a property, if you’re not 100% certain that everything is perfect, then you may want to make your offer conditional on you doing some further checks.

On some Agreements, you will see there is a box for you to circle the conditions you wish to put in your offer, and to enter dates for these conditions. We actually advise you not to use these template conditions, which refer to standard wording within the General Terms. Instead, we suggest you write your own conditions into the Further Terms or Appendix page, using our recommended wording, as these are more purchaser friendly.

For example, if you choose to use the standard builder’s report condition built into the ADLS Agreement for Sale and Purchase, you will be required to provide the report to the vendor if you cancel under that condition.

We have provided our template conditions here for your use. This isn’t legal advice, and we always advise you to speak to a lawyer before putting in an offer, but we understand that is not always possible.

For each condition, you need to have a timeframe of a certain number of working days to satisfy the condition. A working day is a weekday that isn’t a holiday, and starts at 9am and ends at 5pm. We’ve entered 10 working days into these as a base, but the timeframe can be shorter or longer. You will need to consider how long the condition will take you to satisfy, and how long the vendor is willing to wait.

Here is our wording for conditions:

  • Finance
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining finance for the purchase of the property on terms satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • Insurance
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining insurance for the property on terms satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • Approval of Agreement and Title
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser and purchaser’s solicitor approving this agreement and the property’s title, including plans and the terms of all registered interests, are acceptable in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • LIM report
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining a LIM Report for the property that is satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

Please note, LIM Reports can take up to 10 working days to be received from the Council, so 12-15 working days may be required for this condition.

  • Building report
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining a building inspection report for the property that is satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • Valuer’s Report
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining a Registered Valuer’s Report for the property that is satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • Council Records
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser obtaining all relevant records from the Council for the property and those records being satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

  • Due Diligence
    This agreement is conditional on the purchaser completing a due diligence investigation of the property that is satisfactory to the purchaser in all respects within [10] working days of the date of this agreement. This condition is inserted for the sole benefit of the purchaser.

Also, while technically not a ‘condition’ if you’re planning to pay the initial deposit amount to the vendor from your KiwiSaver, you should consider whether you need to include a specific clause to cover this:

  • KiwiSaver as deposit
    The deposit amount is to be paid from the purchaser’s KiwiSaver funds. The deposit amount is to be paid to the vendor’s solicitor’s trust account once received from the purchaser’s KiwiSaver provider on the basis that the vendor’s solicitor provides the purchaser’s solicitor with sufficient undertakings that the funds will be held by them until settlement and repaid to the purchaser in full if settlement is not completed (except where non-completion of the settlement is due to the purchaser’s default).

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to get in touch with us and we’d be happy to help.

If you’d like more help with reviewing documents before making an offer, or would like to know more about the process, check out our page on buying a house.