How to sell an apartment yourself: step by step instructions

Step 1: prepare documents

When making a deal, a set of documents will be required from the owner of the living space. There is no need to collect certificates in advance, because almost all official papers have a limited validity period. We advise you to start doing this when a real buyer appears and a preliminary contract is concluded. But if you have lost your passport, then keep in mind that it will take time to restore it, besides, other documents are not issued without a passport.

So, the owner of the home during the transaction needs to have on hand:

• Passport or other identity document (for military personnel, this is a certificate certified by the commander of the unit). If there are several owners of living space, then each will need a passport or birth certificate.

• Documents of title to the real estate object: initial privatization, apartment purchase and sale agreement, inheritance certificate, donation agreement, exchange. If the apartment was purchased after July 1, 2016, then the main document confirming ownership of the property is an extract from the USRN. Until this date, the owner of the square meters was given a certificate of ownership of the property, drawn up on an official letterhead with an official seal and watermarks. If for some reason the document turned out to be lost, then you need to contact the MFC or the Rossreestr website rosreestr.gov.ru and order an extract from the USRN with a seal.

• Consent of a spouse to sell an apartment, certified by a notary.

• Certificate of absence of arrears in payment for housing and communal services, as well as major repairs. Issued by the management company or the territorial office of the EIRTS (Unified Information and Settlement Center). 

• An extract from the house book or a certificate from the passport office. This is necessary to confirm the information about the number of residents and residents registered at this address. The certificate is issued at the MFC or at the passport office at the management company.

• Technical passport, if the apartment is sold on a mortgage. But remember, if there is an unofficial redevelopment in the living space, it will be impossible to sell the apartment.

• If the apartment is owned by a minor child, then a permit issued by the guardianship and guardianship authorities will be required.

Step 2: check if there are any restrictions on the sale

Before selling an apartment, the owner of the apartment needs to know that some circumstances can greatly delay the transaction. For example:

1.  Other residents registered in this room. When concluding a preliminary agreement, it is necessary to indicate the period during which these citizens will be removed from registration. 

2. Restrictions are imposed on the transaction if there are children in the shared property. There is a law that protects the rights of minors, therefore, so that after the sale of the apartment the child does not remain homeless, the parents (or guardians) are obliged to provide the minor with similar property or the same share in the apartment, or compensate the difference financially. The permission of the guardianship and guardianship authorities is required.

3. It will not be possible to sell an apartment if the property is seized: by the court, bailiffs, the police, etc. The sale procedure will resume after the reasons that gave rise to the seizure have been eliminated.

4. Additional efforts will have to be made in the case of real estate mortgages. For example, an apartment is registered in a mortgage, then the homeowner must take a consent from the bank to sell the collateral. Taking into account the specifics of mortgage lending and the presence of encumbrances on the apartment, you can sell it if you repay the loan at the bank ahead of schedule. It is also possible to transfer debt obligations. Each of these options has its own procedure, and all of them are carried out in cooperation with the lending bank. It is impossible to sell an apartment without his knowledge. But do not worry: there are many such transactions on the market, so the risk of fraud is minimal. All encumbrances on the apartment (arrest, bail, rent) are reflected in the extract of the USRN – a mandatory document when conducting a sale and purchase transaction.

5. Redevelopment. It must be legalized and a new registration certificate must be obtained. The BTI is engaged in this, you can get the document at the MFC. Keep in mind: redevelopment registration after too radical repairs may be refused.

In addition, there are several other scenarios where the risk of challenging the transaction is high, so buyers are reluctant to choose such options. If you decide to sell an apartment without intermediaries, you need to know about them.

1. If the apartment is owned for less than a year (scammers often use this). For example, a citizen got housing by inheritance from his grandmother or by a donation agreement. And where is the guarantee that other heirs will not appear after the deal? Or, perhaps, the elderly relative who donated his apartment was not at that moment in his right mind and with full memory? Such contracts can be challenged in court.

2. One of the owners has a mental illness. The buyer has the right to request from the seller a certificate from a neuropsychiatric dispensary to make sure that this person can participate in transactions. Proof of sanity will have to be done by those co-owners who are registered in a drug treatment clinic, and even just elderly owners (confirmation is required that they can participate in the transaction).

3. Another difficult case for sale, when one of the owners of the premises being sold is in prison or was declared missing. But the prisoner can participate in the transaction by proxy.

4. It is also a risky option when an apartment is sold, bought using maternity capital, but in which no shares have been allocated to children. The buyer can check the records in the passport about the presence of children and ask for a certificate from the Pension Fund about the balance of funds on the family certificate. What is the threat to the seller of the sale of housing bought with the use of maternity capital, but without the allocation of shares to children? Punishment up to criminal.

Important!

How to sell an apartment in an emergency building?

The law does not prohibit the sale of housing in an emergency house, but several conditions must be taken into account. The owner cannot sign a sale and purchase agreement when an agreement has been concluded with the administration on the exchange of an apartment or on payment of compensation to the owner of square meters for emergency housing and when there is a court decision on the forced eviction of the owner. If there are no two obstacles listed above, then the apartment can be sold.

Step 3: posting a sale ad

The homeowner posted an ad for the sale and started receiving calls from buyers. To protect yourself from possible fraudsters, refuse offers to sell an apartment in installments or with a deferred payment. Even if they offer an amount in excess of the amount indicated in the ad.

Step 4: get down to business

When there is a real buyer, you need to start drawing up a preliminary sales contract. This is a mandatory document, thanks to which the parties prescribe in detail all the conditions of the further transaction, including the agreement on the deposit and the terms of the transaction, and begin to collect documents and certificates. The time of the purchase and sale procedure depends on how quickly the seller collects all the necessary official papers. But in any case, the procedure takes no more than one and a half months. The preliminary sales contract is drawn up in 3 copies.

The seller can prepare both the preliminary and the main sales contract without the help of a lawyer. But if the property is in shared ownership, then the document must be drawn up with a notary.

Step 5: We sign the sales contract

 At the appointed time, the seller and the buyer draw up the main contract of sale, in which they indicate:

• Full name of the parties, their addresses and passport data;

• a detailed description of the apartment according to an extract from the USRN: address, footage, cadastral number and other information;

• the price for which the living space is being sold, in rubles in figures and in words;

• payment order;

• the procedure and term for the transfer of housing (according to the act, or this function is performed by the contract);

• additionally, a clause is included about the accident rate of housing or the presence of housing in a mortgage – which the seller notified, and the buyer took note of this fact.

If there is a clause in the contract that states that the premises are transferred under an act of acceptance and transfer, then such an act is necessary. If the document indicates that the contract is the only document confirming the transfer of ownership, then the acceptance certificate is not needed.

An agreement is drawn up in at least three copies: one copy for each party to the transaction and an additional one for Rosreestr. Each of them bears the handwritten signatures of the parties to the transaction.

Step 6: payment

Before transferring the sales contract to Rosreestr, the buyer must make a cash settlement with the seller. Today, the safest form of payment, both for the seller and the buyer, is depositing funds into a letter of credit at a bank. Please note: any cash transactions (deposit or final settlement) are confirmed by a receipt of receipt of funds.

Step 7: closing the deal

For registration, a package of documents is transferred to Rosreestr:

1. Purchase and sale agreement in 3 copies.

2. A document of title, that is, on the basis of which the owner owns this property (contract of privatization, purchase and sale, donation).

3. Application of the buyer and the seller for registration (such a statement is drawn up by an employee of the MFC when submitting documents).

4. Buyer’s and Seller’s passports.

5. The deed of transfer, if the sales contract is not.

6. Extract from the USRN.

7. Receipt of payment of the state duty (when selling real estate, the obligation to pay the state duty for registering the transaction lies with the buyer. The amount of the state duty is 2000 rubles, payable to the MFC at the time of submission of documents).

The end of the transaction is the ownership right registered in the Federal Register for the real estate buyer. Documents are submitted through the MFC. The service is free.

Step 8: Commitment after the sale

After the sale of real estate, the former owner remains obliged to pay tax on real estate for the previous period up to the day of registration of the purchase and sale transaction in Rosreestr.