Steps and timeline to buy a resale private property

1. Before the option

Before committing to anything, it helps to know how much you can borrow and how much cash and CPF you will need. Buyers should check whether additional buyer's stamp duty applies to them, and look over the property carefully before committing.

2. Signing the Option to Purchase

The seller grants an Option to Purchase in exchange for an option fee, commonly 1% of the price. The option period is usually between 14 and 21 days. During that time, your lawyer starts work and you finalise your bank loan.

3. Searches and exercising the option

Your lawyer searches the land register and makes other checks to confirm the seller's title and look for problems such as existing caveats, mortgages or government acquisition plans. If everything is satisfactory and your loan is approved, you exercise the option within the option period, usually by paying a further 4% deposit to the seller's lawyers.

The exercised option becomes the binding contract. Your lawyer then lodges a caveat with the Singapore Land Authority to record your interest in the property.

4. Paying stamp duty

Buyer's stamp duty, and any additional buyer's stamp duty, is payable to IRAS. Firms describe the deadline as within 14 days of signing the contract in Singapore (or 30 days after receiving it if signed overseas). Your lawyer usually arranges the stamping.

5. Getting ready for completion

In the weeks before completion, your lawyer pulls the pieces together. One firm describes a typical sequence:

• About a month before completion, submitting the application to use CPF savings.
• About two weeks before, coordinating the drawdown of the bank loan.
• About a week before, receiving the completion account setting out the amounts payable.

6. Completion

On the completion date, the balance of the price is paid. After deducting the option fee and exercise deposit, that is commonly the remaining 95%. In exchange, the seller hands over vacant possession and the documents needed to transfer the title, and you collect the keys.

Afterwards, your lawyer registers the transfer, and any mortgage, with the Singapore Land Authority, and you become the registered owner.

How long the whole process takes

Firms give slightly different estimates, generally between eight and twelve weeks, with ten to twelve weeks common where there is a bank loan. The completion date is set in the contract, so it can be negotiated to suit your financing or the sale of an existing home.

If you are buying and selling at the same time, the timing of the two transactions matters, including for stamp duty. A lawyer can advise on how to sequence them.