Show Your Home to Buyers

You are in the home stretch. You’ve struck a deal with the buyers, and now you need to fulfil your side of the bargain.

This is the fourth and last critical stage of the home selling process. This Canadian home seller guide has helpful information on how to get the highest value for your home. It includes guides for each stage of the process, extra tips, and checklists for first-time home sellers and experienced sellers.

In some ways, this stage can be more stressful than showing your home and arriving at an acceptable deal for selling your home. Here are the activities that lie ahead of you.

Meet the conditions of sale

There are often conditions attached to the sale that you’ll need to meet, or else you risk voiding the sales contract. As a convenience, try to arrange for the buyer’s home inspector and appraiser to arrive on the same day around the same time.

You or your Realtor need to provide the home inspector and appraiser with access to your property.

Home Inspection

A purchase will often stipulate that your home must pass a satisfactory inspection. There are slight differences between a house inspection and a condo inspection.

An inspection may uncover some deficiencies, and if the issues are material, then the buyer can require that you make repairs before closing.

House Inspection

The house inspection service is a comprehensive evaluation of a home’s visible and readily accessible structure. Most home buyers hire a professional inspector to assess the condition of the home they are about to own. The inspector will identify areas that need repair or will need repairing soon. Sometimes the home inspector will raise a red flag about significant issues that may kill the deal. For example, black mould or asbestos in your home might cause some buyers to back-out of a purchase.

The home inspector benefits the buyer, but you will need to provide the inspector with access to your home. You can accompany them for their inspection. They are not allowed to damage your home in the course of their investigation. For example, they can not pull up roof shingles or make a discreet hole in your wall to see the building's condition underneath the surface.

A house inspection often includes an examination of:

• Roofing age and condition.

• Foundation, Basement, and Crawl Spaces.

• Grading and Drainage.

• Interior (doors, windows, floors, walls, ceilings, stairs).

• Exterior (doors, windows, siding).

• Gas, Electrical, and Plumbing.

• Heating and Air Conditioning.

• Attic, Insulation, & Ventilation.

Condo Inspection

Even though the condominium board maintains a condo building with support from a property manager, condo inspections are just as necessary as house inspections. Condos often change ownership. It’s always possible that a repair or renovation by a previous owner did not have appropriate municipal building permits, permission from a condo board, or simply was not completed to acceptable safety standards.

Post-inspection Repairs

If you agreed to complete repairs as a condition of post-inspection negotiations, it is your responsibility to complete them before closing.

Home Appraisal

If your buyer is getting a mortgage to buy your home, as most likely would, their lender will typically order an appraisal to make sure the home has a value equivalent to the purchase price.

If the home's value comes in below the purchase price, the buyer will have to come up with a more significant down payment or walk away from the deal.

Schedule the movers

When you were showing your home, you selected your moving company. Once you’ve locked down the sale, call them to book a moving date.

If you live in a condo building, book the elevator and reserve parking space for the moving truck outside your building. The same goes for arranging for access to your new home. Always book elevators in advance and remember that the month's end usually has a hectic moving schedule.

Notify people of address change

Contact Canada Post, gas and electric companies, telephone, internet, and cable companies about transfer or service cancellation.

Mail forwarding by Canada Post is pretty straightforward, and you can buy it online.

Here is a checklist with other service providers you should notify.

Plan how you’ll move your valuables

Keep your smaller valuables with you. Your most reliable way to protect your valuables is to keep them off the moving truck.

If you’re driving, that means transporting them to your new home in your car.

If you’re flying, keep them in your carry-on baggage. Avoid storing valuables in your checked bags. A report by the BBC estimates that airlines lost, misdirected or mishandled 25 million pieces of luggage.

We recommend keeping valuables with you as much as you can while travelling to your new home. If you’re stopping in a restaurant for lunch or visiting a supermarket to pick up cleaning supplies, do not leave your valuables in the car. Put your jewelry and electronics into a backpack that you can take with you.

Moving day

Moving is always stressful.

The day before moving

Before the movers arrive, make sure you’ve taken care of the following:

• Unplug, defrost and clean your fridge/freezer; otherwise, you’ll open a smelly mess when you arrive at your new home. Or the new owners will get your smelly mess.

• Unplug, empty and clean the dishwasher.

• Clean the oven, stovetop, and microwave oven.

• Remove the batteries from any electronics.

• Drain the fuel from your power-tools (lawnmower, snow blower, etc.) and barbeque.

• Empty and wipe down all your drawers, cupboards, shelves, and furniture.

• Strip the covers from your beds, sofas, chairs, and tables.

• Cushions should be packed in plastic and then boxed.

• Wash and dry all linens, towels, and clothes, then pack them in plastic before boxing them.

• Mirrors, clocks, pictures, paintings, and other decorations should be removed from your walls. If they are small enough to fit in a box, they should be packed.

• Throw out the garbage and wash the trash and recycling bins.

• Keep a garbage bag or two at hand for collecting trash throughout the day.

• Use painter’s tape to clearly label any appliance or large piece of furniture that should not be packed.

There will be several movers with the company, and they aren’t very familiar with your house, so you can’t expect them to remember things – you need to label everything with instructions clearly.

Clearly, in large block letters, indicate which boxes are ‘HEAVY and ‘FRAGILE. You don’t want heavy boxes of books stacked on top of fragile boxes of glassware when the moving truck passes over a set of speedbumps.

If there’s a box that should NOT be turned on its side, add arrows pointing upward with the words ‘⇧ THIS SIDE UP ⇧.’ This may sound like common sense, but you shouldn’t leave it to chance.

Also, label each box with the name of the room you want it delivered to when the movers arrive at your new home. You don’t want to be unpacking kitchen items in your bedroom and vice versa. If you have several bedrooms, you can number the bedrooms (Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, …). When you arrive at your new home, use painters’ tape to label the bedroom doorways so the movers will know where to leave the boxes for each bedroom.

The ‘do not pack’ room

In a separate area, set aside all the items you don’t want to be packed on the moving truck. Use painter’s tape to label the door of this room ‘DO NOT PACK.’

Ideally, you will keep a suitcase full of ‘daily essentials’ in this room. That suitcase contains things like:

• Plane/train tickets.

• Keys.

• Prescription medications.

• Basic toiletry items.

• A change of clothes.

• A set of bed linen.

• A towel for every family member.

• Essential electronic devices (with their chargers).

• Kids’ favourite toy (if applicable).

• Pets’ items (if applicable).

• A backpack with your valuables.

The day of the move

Unless the movers are packing for you, which is expensive, you should pack everything well in advance. You don’t want to be frantically packing boxes while the movers work around you.

Ideally, you should inventory and label each item or else you will be relying on the moving company’s records alone.

Ensure there is a clear path from every room to your front door. Nothing should obstruct the ability of your movers to navigate between areas of your home.

Remove any obstacles between each room and the front door to ensure the movers can safely move items in and out of your home.

Keep the path from your front door to the moving truck free of obstructions and other potential hazards that could cause someone to slip, trip, or fall.

Once the moving truck is full, walk through your home to confirm nothing has accidentally been left behind and that nothing in your ‘DO NOT PACK’ room found its way onto the truck.

When the movers leave, clean up any leftover packing paper, boxes, or tape. As a courtesy, tidy up a little for the new owners.

Sign closing documents

When you sign documents at the lawyer’s office, you’re not only signing over the deed to the house, but you are also confirming the repayment of your mortgage, and you’re paying additional closing costs.

Seller closing costs

Real estate agent’s commission

The home seller typically pays their real estate agents’ commission. You also have to pay GST/HST on the commission.

Seller’s Remaining Mortgage

Your lender will send the lawyer a ‘discharge statement,’ which includes the mortgage balance, any accrued interest, a penalty for early repayment, and other fees to remove the mortgage from your property.

Property Taxes

You are responsible for accrued property taxes. If you lived in the house for half the year but haven’t yet paid your taxes, then you’ll need to pay your share of taxes for the time that you owned in the home.

Capital Gains Tax

If the home is not your principal residence or you haven’t lived in the home long enough, then you may be responsible for taxes on the increased value of your property.

Lawyer Fees

Lawyers usually charge a flat fee for a real estate transaction. Still, they may add additional costs such as government title search fees, tax search fees, land title registration fees, photocopying, courier services, etc.

Insure your belongings for the move

Find out what insurance coverage your moving company provides. Some movers offer basic coverage based on your belongings' weight, but this often doesn’t compensate you sufficiently for higher value items.

For this insurance to apply, you have to follow rules which vary from one mover to another. For example, some movers will not insure anything that you have packed yourself, and others will protect you if you follow their packing instructions.

IMPORTANT: Ready-to-assemble furniture (of the Swedish big-box store type) is not usually covered unless it has been disassembled.

Ask for a copy of the insurance policies before finalizing your moving company.

Ideally, you should inventory and label each item in advance, or else you will be relying on the moving company’s records alone. In our experience, the movers always take longer than anticipated to pack up your home and, toward the end of the day, the detail with which they record each item begins to suffer.

On moving day, inspect the condition of your belongings with the mover before the move. Confirm that their list has all of the items on your list and that nothing is missing.

IMPORTANT: In the event of loss or damage, the moving company's insurance pays out first, but your home insurance covers any damage above the mover's coverage. The standard terms of your insurance policy apply. Make sure the home insurance on your old place is still in effect, or you’ve insured your new home to cover the moving period.

Buy insurance for your new home

Home insurance policies will typically cover both your old and new home for 30 days. Double-check your insurance policy to make sure this applies to you!

IMPORTANT: If you want insurance coverage for your move, you must tell your insurer that you're moving 30 to 60 days before your planned moving date.

Home insurance can range from $450 a month to over $1,000 a month, depending on the type of home you own. We recommend getting a detailed quote from SquareOne Insurance and comparing it to a couple of other options.

Your home with its contents is likely your most valuable financial asset, and you should ensure that you have enough coverage to protect yourself if the worst case happens.

IMPORTANT: If your belongings are in transit or storage for some time before you move into your new home, then you should make sure you have home insurance spanning the full timeframe when you do not have a home. Home insurance covers your belongings while they are in transit.

For more information on the types of home insurance, read our full report.

If there is anything unclear in the explanations above. Please let us know so we can improve our advice for the next reader.