Liminality Is a Structural Phase

Who owns a house after the offer to purchase is signed but before transfer is registered? The seller does, completely, until the Deeds Registry records the transfer, even though the buyer may already be measuring the windows for curtains.

That in between stretch has a structure of its own. The buyer's bank values the property and finalises the bond, the conveyancer collects the rates clearance certificate and the compliance certificates, and the seller's bank is given notice that its bond is going to be cancelled. If the buyer moves in early, the agreement normally sets an occupational rent, because one person is living in a house that another person still owns and pays rates on. A well drafted offer also says at what point the risk of damage passes from one to the other, because a storm does not wait for the deeds office.

Most trouble in this phase comes from treating it as a pause. The buyer stops answering the conveyancer's requests for documents, the seller lets the pool turn green, and both behave as though the deal were already done. On paper it is not done yet, and in property the paper is what decides.