The Night Before the Switch

Once a transfer is lodged at the Deeds Office, the people involved can mostly only wait. The conveyancer has drawn the deed, the bond attorney has prepared the bond, the clearance certificate has been issued, and the documents have gone in together. Now an examiner works through them with no interest in how anybody feels.

That waiting stretch is strange for a buyer. The work is finished but nothing has happened yet, so people fill the gap with checking. They phone the conveyancer for updates, reread the offer to purchase looking for a clause they missed, and drive past the house in the evening to see whether the lights are on.

Most of that checking feels like care, but a lot of it is nerves. The real checking was done earlier, when the suspensive conditions were met, when the bond was approved, when the compliance certificates were handed over. If something was missed then, it will surface the way these things usually do, as a query from the examiner or a rejection that sends the file back for correction.

And that is fine, because the system expects it. A rejected deed gets fixed and lodged again. The night before registration is a good night to sleep.