Your home is sold! Congratulations! There is still lots to do before the new owners take possession of your home. This section of the site talks about:

  • Selecting a Lawyer
  • Fulfilling Obligations in the Purchase Contract
  • What Happens on Possession Day
  • Should it stay or should it go?
  • Utilities

Selecting a Lawyer:
Once your home is sold you should have a lawyer to handle the transfer of title and monies. You may want to have a lawyer look over your listing and purchase contracts, so it wise to have a lawyer selected before you decide to sell your home. Many lawyers in Edmonton specialize in real estate law and we highly recommend selecting one who does so.  You should meet with your lawyer about 7-10 days before the possession date to sign any necessary paperwork.

Fulfilling Obligations in the Purchase Contract
The purchase contract is an agreement between you and the buyer of your home; in the purchase contract you have agreed to sell your home to the buyer for a certain amount of money, and you’ve also agreed to a number of other terms and conditions. For example, you’ve most likely agreed to sell the home to the buyer in “as viewed” condition (when the buyer takes possession it should look much the same as it did when the buyer viewed it). You may have agreed to other terms, such as steam cleaning the carpets, or leaving the appliances in normal working order. You’ve probably agreed to provide a real property report with compliance – if you don’t already have one, you’ll need to get one and get it approved by the city asap.

Possession Day
It is most likely that you’ve agreed to give the buyers possession of your home at noon on the day of possession. Your lawyer will “release the keys” when they receive the funds from the buyer – this usually happens slightly before or after 12pm.  At that time the listing agent will contact the buyer’s representative and let them know the keys have been released, the property now belongs to its new owners. That means you need to be out of the house, and the house needs to be in “as viewed” condition on possession day by 12 noon at the latest.

Should it Stay or Should it Go?
As discussed in the section on the purchase contract, anything that is securely attached to your home should stay with the home (lighting and plumbing fixtures, shelves and anything screwed into the walls, trees and plants in the yard etc) unless it was specifically excluded in the purchase contract. Anything that you agreed to leave (such as appliances) should also stay. If you have any questions about what should stay and what should go be sure to ask your Realtor.

Utilities
You’ll want to arrange to cancel all your utilities well in advance of the possession date (some companies require notice for a certain length of time). However, you should have your main utilities running at least until possession day – the last thing you want is to have the pipes freeze, or the sump pump fail or any other number of complications in between the sale and possession of your home.