How to sell an apartment

In recent years, it has become more difficult to sell an apartment.

The first is the increased number of new buildings that sell new, clean, bright, modern housing, with zero wear and tear. Against this background, it is difficult to sell an old apartment, which was built during the Soviet era, in houses that have developed both technological and aesthetic resources.

The second is a fundamental change in the technology of selling real estate.
Any person can post an ad in the “Apartment for sale” category on hundreds of portals, aggregators or free ad sites.

Such accessibility, on the one hand (and at first glance)

Simplifies the procedure for selling an apartment, but in fact creates a huge information noise from individuals, owners, real estate agencies, experienced and especially novice realtors, developers and other real estate players.

A potential buyer is lost from monotony and irrelevance, quickly gets tired when he sees the same object with different price tags on different Internet sites for the eleventh time.

Therefore, the procedure for selling an apartment is a multi-stage and very difficult event. Let’s try to outline these stages in detail.

How quickly do you need to sell an apartment?

Each owner of real estate by default is “in the center of the universe” and it seems to him that it is enough to place an ad on the Internet, as there will be no end to buyers. Indeed, within an hour after the announcement, the first calls begin to arrive. But the trouble is, these are calls not from buyers, but from real estate agencies and realtors.

Approximately on the 8-10th call

The seller of the apartment begins to get annoyed (there are calls, but there are no buyers) and this situation can continue not only for months, but also for years.

Therefore, if you have an unlimited amount of time for which you need to sell an apartment, plus an unlimited amount of patience and perseverance, you can go through almost all stages of the sale of an apartment (with the exception of notarization of the purchase and sale transaction) on your own.

If the sale of your own apartment is closely related to other events – moving to another city or another country, buying a new apartment, an urgent need for money, the impossibility of existing in the old apartment, etc. – the time you have to sell is limited by these events.

Entering the real estate market with your apartment, you need to clearly understand – Until what date the apartment needs to be sold!

Checking documents for an apartment

A fact that is not obvious to citizens, but well known to notaries, is that a huge number of real estate sellers do not even know that they have no practical opportunity to sell their apartment, since they are not legally the owners.

The apartment is not privatized

Such an apartment cannot be sold, since it is not privatized real estate, not your property, but the property of the state.

The apartment is not included in the register
Where the document for the apartment lies is known, but this document is the “Certificate of Ownership” issued before 2013. To date, such a certificate in itself is not a document confirming ownership. Since 2013, the fact of owning an apartment is an entry in the State Register of Rights to Real Estate.

If the apartment is not included in the register, it must be done immediately!
Entering an apartment in the register is carried out by the state registrar

Ancestral flat

Children or other relatives live in an apartment left as an inheritance.
In the event that there were no other applicants for the apartment and / or the entry into the inheritance occurred “automatically”, the heirs can live in the apartment for years and decades, considering that they are the owners.

But then a buyer appeared and managed to agree on the sale price.

You go to a notary and it turns out that all you have is a relative’s death certificate and/or will. But according to these documents, it is impossible to sell the apartment. The only document that allows you to sell an apartment left as an inheritance is the “Certificate of the right to inheritance”.

The apartment has changed owners several times (inherited, donated, sold…)
The buyer of an apartment is a deliberately cautious person, because he does not want to buy real estate, which can be taken away from him by a court decision, in favor of deceived previous owners or heirs who have presented their rights.

Notaries are also not interested in making purchase and sale transactions with “problem” apartments and therefore check the history of owners and transactions for the apartment.