The settlement run: many completions, one month

A development sells slowly and settles fast. Contracts signed across two years all become due within a few weeks of each other.

Every purchaser needs the same things at the same time, and each one can stall for its own reason.

Start the purchaser work before the certificate arrives

Most settlement delays are purchaser side: finance that lapsed, a valuation ordered late, a solicitor who never received the plan.

Every purchaser deserves a call well before completion, with three questions in it. Is their finance current, has their solicitor got the documents, and who inspects?

Asking early costs an afternoon. Asking during the settlement window costs you the interest on an unsold unit.

Group the inspections, and expect the same defects

Purchasers inspect in the same fortnight and raise overlapping lists. The same paint mark appears on nine lots because one trade worked across all of them.

Defects group by trade rather than by lot. One trade returns once and closes thirty items, instead of nine separate visits.

One list, read by everybody

Settlement involves your solicitor, your builder, your agent, your lender and each purchaser. Five parties working from four versions produces the delays.

One list, with a row per lot, replaces all of that. It holds finance status, inspection date, defects outstanding, the settlement date and the one thing that lot still needs.

Know which lots are at risk this week

A settlement list sorted by lot number hides the problem. Sorted by what is outstanding, it names the four lots that need somebody today.

Your weekly review takes fifteen minutes and covers only those four. The rest need no meeting at all.

Plan for the ones that fail

Some purchasers will not settle. Finance falls through, circumstances change, and a soft market makes both more likely.

The response belongs in writing beforehand: how long to hold, when to resell, and whether the deposit stays or the price moves. A decision made under pressure usually costs more.

Money arrives in a lump, and so do the bills

Settlement week repays the facility, pays the agent, releases retention and triggers tax obligations. All of that lands together.

The model should run on the week rather than the month, because the order matters. Our guide to retentions and the defects period covers the money that stays behind after everybody else is paid.

The handover pack decides your first month of calls

A purchaser with no manuals rings you about the oven, the intercom and the hot water. Multiply that by forty lots.

Your pack carries the appliance manuals, the warranty details, the meter numbers, the body corporate contacts and who to ring for a defect.

The pack should arrive before settlement rather than at the door. A purchaser who reads it beforehand asks far fewer questions afterwards.

It also sets the defect process in writing, so the first report arrives through the channel you chose.

Your builder should supply most of that pack, and the time to ask is at contract rather than at completion.

A pack assembled during settlement week gets assembled badly. Ask for it early and it arrives while somebody still has time to compile it properly.

A settlement that slips a week costs you interest on the whole facility.

What to change first

• Every purchaser answers the three questions before the certificate arrives
• Defects group by trade, so each one returns once
• One list, a row per lot, read by all five parties
• Sorting by what is outstanding leaves only the lots at risk
• The response to a failed settlement gets decided in advance
• Settlement week models in order, not the month in total