Dirty kitchen cupboards, or a surprise discovery of junk under your newly-purchased house – can you call in the lawyers?

Expectations of cleanliness are a can of worms looking for an escape, if only because there is a jumbo bin sized chasm between individual standards – what someone considers clean is an insult to the common decency of others.

Should vendors clean up their act?

Under terms specified in the ADLS standard Agreement for Sale and Purchase, unless otherwise agreed, the vendor is required to sell the property with vacant possession. The definition includes existing occupants and their furniture, personal belongings, and rubbish – all of which should be cleared by settlement.

However, there isn’t a clause that requires vendors to clean their property to any particular standard.

Buyers could include clear definitions of cleanliness as an additional condition in the sale and purchase agreement – before they sign on the dotted line. However, this is very rare.

Rubbish is another matter

If you notice rubbish in or around the property, then you should insert a clause in the sale and purchase agreement requesting its removal. Such clauses are deemed as a warranty (a contractual promise given by a vendor to a purchaser as part of an agreement).

The purchaser cannot refuse to settle in the event the vendor has failed to remove rubbish. However, if you’re concerned by anything you see during the pre-settlement inspection, request the retention of a certain dollar amount until any rubbish has been removed. If the vendor fails to act, the retained amount will be used to do the job.

Avoid nasty surprises

Make your prepurchase inspections count.

  • Check for rubbish under the house and in attic spaces. And never assume a small pile isn’t worth highlighting. Removing asbestos – small pile or big – is an expensive problem. Specifically identify the rubbish you want removed in the sale and purchase agreement.
  • Check behind furniture. Not just for rubbish – furniture often hides things like water damage and holes in walls, which can be listed as repairs conditional to the sale.
  • Tread carefully when negotiating a sale price discount to accommodate rubbish removal. I know of one case where a vendor agreed to drop the sale price by $1,000 to compensate the new owner for having to remove a pile of rubbish. The only trouble was that removing the rubbish ended up costing much more than $1,000.
  • Be wary of households with pets. Moving into your new home and then having to deal with an infestation of fleas is deflating. Make flea treatment a condition of the sale and purchase agreement.

A word about adding clauses

Changes and additions made by either party – buyer or seller – to a sale and purchase agreement must be recorded in the agreement and initialled by all parties.

Initialling indicates that each party has noted the change and accepted it.

Note, however, that conditions provide limited options for either party to exit the sale and purchase agreement.

People assume a failure to meet certain conditions is a surefire way to cancel the agreement. It isn’t – and both parties need to understand that there are limits on how clauses impact the binding nature of a sale and purchase agreement. Check with your lawyer before you add your signature.

At Goodwins, we’re big on commonsense and courtesy. We do expect high standards of cleanliness from our tenants and the vendors we represent. And as property managers, we never present a property that we wouldn’t be happy to live in ourselves. Call 0800 GOODWINS to find a property that has already been scrubbed up nicely.