Title deeds and site diagrams should be part of the agent's fact file

Estate agents should study the title deeds of the homes they are selling and produce these for discussion if prospective buyers show interest, says Anton du Plessis, chief executive of Vineyard Estates.

"Every now and then a buyer will sign for a property without being told by the agent that it is subject to certain restrictions, such as a boundary setback. These may be standard for the area or they may be special to the site. The buyer may, for example, be unaware of the servitude to the property," says du Plessis.

"In many cases, the agent, in his urgency to close a sale, will assure buyers that no onerous title conditions exist when in fact he has never checked the title deeds or the surveyor general's site diagrams."

The agent should be able to produce the site diagram approved by the surveyor general's office. Such diagrams have on occasions been known to reveal unexpected irregularities in the shape of the plot.

In one case, he says, an agent sold a home in the southern suburbs without realising it did not include a section fronting a stream - land that had been occasionally used by the seller and was assumed to be part of the plot. In fact it formed part of a panhandle next door.

Du Plessis cites an example of a property in Constantia, where is was clear to him that the property was smaller than the seller thought. Closer inspection of the surveyor's report confirmed the seller's estimation. However, when Du Plessis measured the boundaries, he saw a mistake had been made. The surveyor had inadvertently included an adjacent road in the erf.

"Had the property been sold on the basis of the incorrect size (inflated by some 8 percent) it could have had disastrous financial implications for the seller, and consequently the surveyor further down the line.

" It meant that the property could only be subdivided into three and not four portions," says Du Plessis.

Weekend Property supplement (Saturday Argus)

Posted at 07:28AM Feb 22, 2010 by Editor in Residential  |  Comments[1]