Assemble title and ownership documents, permits with final sign-off, systems and maintenance records, insurance declarations and loss history, association documents, and twelve months of operating costs before listing. Doing it early forces you to find problems while you still have time and leverage to deal with them.
Most sellers gather documents when a buyer asks, under time pressure, while confidence erodes with each delay. Doing it first costs a few weeks and removes most of what goes wrong later.
Most sellers assemble their documents when a buyer asks for them, which is to say during escrow, under time pressure, while the buyer's confidence quietly erodes with each delay.
Assembling them before listing costs a few weeks of low-effort work and removes most of what goes wrong later. It is the least glamorous preparation a seller can do and among the most effective.
Your deed, and the title policy from when you purchased. The old policy is genuinely useful — it shows what exceptions existed then, which tells you what a buyer will see now.
Where the property is held by a trust or entity, gather the trust certification, operating agreement or corporate resolution establishing who can sign. This is a common source of delay and entirely avoidable.
If there are liens, judgments or unreleased mortgages you know about, start clearing them now. Releases take longer to obtain than escrow allows.
Every permit for work done during your ownership, with the final sign-off rather than just the application.
Then do the uncomfortable exercise: pull the permit history from the local authority and compare it against what physically exists. If something was built without a permit, you want to discover it now, when you can decide how to handle it, rather than during a buyer's diligence when the discovery itself becomes a negotiating point.
Include plans, architect drawings, engineering reports and any surveys. Buyers of large properties value these considerably.
Roof age and any warranty. HVAC service records. Pool and spa equipment ages and servicing. Septic pumping and inspection history. Well flow tests and water quality results. Generator, elevator, irrigation and security system documentation.
A property with organized maintenance records reads as cared for. The same property without them reads as unknown, and buyers price unknown conservatively.
Your current declarations page and your claims history at the address.
Buyers now investigate insurability during diligence, and a seller who can hand over a current policy and a clean loss history removes a source of anxiety. A seller who cannot has created one.
Where applicable: governing documents, current dues, reserve study, minutes for the last year or two, any pending or threatened litigation, and details of planned assessments.
Pending special assessments are a common late-stage problem. Disclose early.
On waterfront, the dock permit or lease, transfer requirements, most recent structural inspection of dock and bulkhead, and any dredging history.
On acreage, water rights documentation, mineral rights position, grazing or agricultural leases, conservation easement documents, and access agreements. These frequently determine value more than the residence does.
Twelve months of actual operating costs: utilities, landscaping, pool service, security monitoring, staffing, association dues. Buyers of estate property increasingly ask, and honest figures given early are far better received than reluctant figures given late.
Property tax assessments and any exemptions currently applied, with a note on whether they survive a sale.
Where any part of the property is let: the lease, payment history, deposit accounting, and any correspondence about disputes or repairs.
Every document that arrives late gives a buyer a reason to wonder what else is missing. Every document that arrives immediately does the opposite.
There is also a practical benefit that sellers underestimate: assembling this material forces you to find the problems yourself, while you still have time and leverage to deal with them. Discovering an unpermitted addition eight weeks before listing is an inconvenience. Discovering it in week two of a buyer's contingency period is a price reduction.
Because every document that arrives late gives a buyer a reason to wonder what else is missing, and because assembling them forces you to find problems while you still have time and leverage to address them.
Permit history compared against what physically exists. Unpermitted work discovered during a buyer's diligence becomes a negotiating point; discovered eight weeks before listing it is an inconvenience.
Yes. A property with organized service history reads as cared for. The same property without it reads as unknown, and buyers price unknown conservatively.
Twelve months of actual operating costs — utilities, landscaping, pool, security, staffing and dues. Honest figures given early are received far better than reluctant figures given late.
On waterfront, the dock permit, transfer requirements and recent inspections of dock and bulkhead. On acreage, water and mineral rights, leases, easements and access agreements — which frequently determine value more than the house does.
A select network of the nation's most accomplished luxury real estate professionals.