What you should know when signing a real estate contract

With the real estate market restless, and waiting for a transition that foresees potential changes in times of greater financial pressure, thinking about talking to a real estate company or professional to understand how the market is doing is increasingly common. notice that there are more homeowners thinking about selling their propertiesor need help to do so. If this is your case, What should you know when signing a Real Estate Mediation Agreement? If, in fact, you choose to work with a Real Estate Agent to sell your property, know that for this it will be necessary to contract the service. In Portugal, the agreed service is formalized with a Real Estate Mediation Contract provided for in the mediation law, Law n.º 15/2013, of 8 February. underrated:Contract validation. The Real Estate Mediation Agreement obeys the written form, being the only one accepted by law. Only from the moment the contract is signed by the parties does the mediator you can start promoting the property, that is, to carry out the proposed service through publicity actions with the objective of attracting potential buyers to boost the sale within the agreed value range and period. Who signs? The legitimate owners of the property. And who obliges the mediation company, in most cases, are not the real estate agents, but the owners of the agencies better known as Brokers or Mediators who hold the AMI license.Deadline. Although the norm is, by default, associated with six months, the term of the contract is free. This means that the parties can agree on what is intended, without any limit, and its renewal is done automatically, unless one of the two parties, owner or real estate agency, terminates in accordance with the procedure defined in said contract. In case of omission of the term, the contract remains valid for a fixed term period of 6 months, always counting from the date of signature.Exclusive or Open. The contracting regime also defines the type of service and the way in which the agency works or contracted agencies, and in the exclusivity regime, there is only one company that can promote the owner’s property exclusively. The owner is also unable to do so on his own. On the contrary, in the open regime, there is no limit to the number of agencies contracting at the same time, and the owner can also do it. It is up to you to decide the type and level of service and monitoring you want. Read also: Real estate mediation. With or without exclusivity?business conditions. The price of the property and the way in which it will be transacted must be part of the contract, being key elements for the acceptance of the proposal by the owner, who can refuse proposals that do not fall within the agreed parameters. Although the final value is essential, it must be taken into account that there are other conditions, such as entry values ​​(signal), which may limit the acceptance of the transaction. It is very different to accept a proposal with a 10 or 20% signal or to accept a proposal without an entry signal. If the entry value to secure the transaction is explicit, you can refuse to make the sale if the proposal does not meet this assumption.Commission. The value of the fees that remunerate the company and the real estate professional is normally only are received when the transaction is formalized. Legally, the entirety of this amount must only be paid upon the complete conclusion of the business, that is, in the deed of purchase and sale or similar document. However, there may be another agreement for early receipt, normally carried out in the Promise of Purchase and Sale Agreement (CPCV), and whenever previously provided for in the Real Estate Mediation Agreement. Read also: How many buyers will be able to pay a commission in Portugal?Type of service and guarantees – The description and type of service do not appear most of the time in the contract, although it is one of the main bases for a possible termination. You must hire companies that attach to the Real Estate Mediation Agreement a detailed description of the service they propose to provide and that guarantee the same, with agreement of the consequence of immediate termination, which is also provided for in the law. I remember there is duties and obligations for both parties. For example, if it is agreed that the owner makes the property available for in-person visits, he must comply with the agreement. Also read: The challenge of standing out in a booming real estate marketDocuments. The documents of the property to be transacted must be presented to the mediator or his collaborator before signing of the Real Estate Mediation Agreement. To start its dissemination, after legal verification of the documents that prove the legitimacy of the person signing the contract, there is a document that cannot be missing, the Energetic certificate. You can be fined if there is none, and the fine will be imposed on the owner and the mediation company simultaneously and individually. It is considered that the mediator started to promote when the real estate mediation contract was signed by the parties. Finally, it is important to mention that the Real Estate Mediation Contract in Portugal can also be made for buyer customeralthough most contracts are associated with the service provided to the seller customer. If you were curious, I will talk about some particularities of contracts for buyer customers in my next article. to take into consideration “Real estate is my life and my life is dealing with people.” Living in Lisbon and working in Portugal, Spain and Italy, Massimo Forte is above all passionate about real estate, a business he considers to be for people for people. With more than 25 years of experience in the largest real estate companies, he is now dedicated to consulting, training and knowledge sharing as one of the largest Real Estate Influencers in Portugal. Tags #real estate, #real estate