How long does a transfer take?
How long does a transfer take?
Posted on August 21st, 2009
Huis-Huis
How long till the transfer's done?
Nobody likes waiting. And to every buyer and seller of real estate, their particular property transaction is the most important sale of immovable property in the world. It is therefor hardly surprising that people get somewhat irate when the transfer of ownership does not happen as speedily as they would like.
A little bit of information could go a long way towards keeping the tempers settled. That’s why we’d like to let you know what to expect when waiting for that ownership transfer to be finalized.
What is a reasonable time period for the process of transferring ownership of a property from one owner to another? How long does a property transfer take to complete? In this article, we give some simple answers to that not-so-simple question about the duration of the transfer process.
If you’re lucky
If you’re very lucky, and I mean VERY lucky, you could have a complete transfer after only one month. This assumes a very simple property ownership transfer process, with no suspensive conditions in the deed of sale, and with no secondary delay factors such as outstanding municipal rates, etc.
A short transfer period is 40 days or less.
If your property transfer takes less than 40 days, you should be thanking your ancestors, the stars, and anyone else willing to listen to your giddy babbling. Anyone who promises a transfer time of less than a month is making promises they cannot keep. Don’t get suckered. Transfers of ownership of immovable property in South Africa takes time.
If nothing unexpected happens
If your real estate transaction is close to the average property transaction found in the South African property market, you’re looking at a transfer process that will run for between two and a half to thee months.
The average transfer of property includes some delays. It just does. And delays take time – duh!
If your transfer gets completed withing three months, you should be happy. Three months is the average duration of transferring ownership of real estate in South Africa. Anything less than 90 days is a speedy transfer.
If something goes wrong
Stuff can go wrong – and it happens quite often. There are so many things that can go wrong in a property transfer that it warrants a whole other article. But to answer the “simple” question of how long an ownership transfer takes, it will suffice to know that stuff can go wrong and that it results in delays in the transfer process.
If something has gone wrong, you can expect your property transfer to take longer than three months. And if your transfer takes longer than three months, it would be safe to assume that something may have gone wonky with your transfer of ownership.
Note that I simply stated “longer than” the three month time frame. Because if things go bad enough, it could take many many months to complete a real estate transfer of ownership. But by this time, we hope you’d have started asking questions about the transfer from the relevant persons, namely the conveyancing attorneys.
Transfer time frame
Every transfer process is different. And because transfers differ, the time required to finalize registration in anyone of the nine title deed registries in South Africa will differ.
To make things even less predictable, the workload of the deeds office where your transfer gets lodged also influences the transfer time frame. If loads of real estate transactions get lodged at the same deeds office at the same time, your transfer might just end up at the back of the queue.
Nobody can predict the exact duration of your ownership transfer process. There are just too many variables to take into account. And too many things can contribute to transfer delays, so be patient. After all, the legal ownership guarantees provided by the South African deeds registry system are worth every minute it may take to complete a thorough transfer process.
Discussion