We have a buyer. Why does it still take time?

Because the agreement is the beginning of completion. After it come the draft contract with its two-week rule, the notary appointment, registration of the priority notice, the bank’s release documents and the municipality’s negative certificate. Only when these are in place does the notary give notice that the price is due.

Can we plan the move for the date of the recording?

Better not. Several weeks usually lie between the recording and payment of the price, and the transfer of possession, benefits and burdens is normally tied in the contract to payment in full. Plan the move after the notice that payment is due, not before.

What if one co-heir does not sign?

Then the sale stops, and no deadline changes that: a community of heirs disposes of an estate asset jointly. That is no occasion for pressure but for a conversation in which the objections are named — often it is not about money but about someone not having been heard.

Knowledge · Orientation

How long does a house sale take?

This question comes up in almost every first conversation, usually second after the price. The usual answer — “three to six months” — is evidenced for no individual case. The honest answer has two parts, and the second can be stated precisely.

The answer first. How long the marketing takes, nobody can seriously say in general — it depends on the individual house, its condition and its location. What can be stated precisely is everything after the agreement: those blocks follow from statute, they occur in every sale, and they cannot be shortened. Between “we are agreed” and “the money is there”, reckon in weeks, not days — and between the purchase price and the land register, in weeks again.

It would be easy to put a range here. It would look good, it would sound experienced, and it would be invented. How quickly a buyer is found for a house depends on things no web page knows: the layout, the condition, the street, the season, the level of interest rates, and whether the family carries the price together or one person is still hesitating.

So we would rather say what replaces a number: what it depends on and which parts are fixed. Anyone who knows the fixed parts can plan without knowing a date — and will not be surprised at the moment when it is genuinely inconvenient, for instance when the move has already been booked.

One point belongs at the start, because it is the commonest delay and nobody counts on it: the family is slower than the market. Where several people inherit, months regularly pass between “we ought to sell” and “we are selling”, in which the market does nothing at all — it is simply not yet decided. How to put that in order is set out in a community of heirs and the property.

Three documents regularly slow things down, and all three can be brought forward. The land register extract and the cadastral map come from public offices and need their processing time. The energy certificate is not optional: anyone selling a building must present it at the viewing at the latest and hand it to the buyer on completion (section 80 GModG). Ordering it only once someone shows serious interest costs time exactly when there is none left.

After a death a fourth point is added, and it is the longest: proof of succession. For the land register, section 35 GBO admits the certificate of inheritance — or, where succession rests on a public disposition on death, that document together with the record of its opening. The certificate procedure takes time; the document, by contrast, often already exists. Which route is open is decided not by preference but by which will exists — see certificate of inheritance and land register.

Remember a single rule for this block: anything issued by an authority, apply for early. It costs nothing to have it too soon.

Once buyer and seller are agreed, the appointment does not follow at once. In consumer contracts — that is, where a trader stands on the other side, a developer or a commercial buy-up firm — the notary is to see to it that the text reaches the consumer as a rule two weeks before the recording (section 17(2a) BeurkG). In a sale between private people the period does not apply — most notaries allow the time anyway, and you may ask for it. Those two weeks are not paperwork but the only time in the whole process when anyone reads the contract calmly.

Added to that is the notary office’s diary, which does not arrange itself around you, and with several co-heirs the question of who attends in person and who is represented. What happens there in detail, and why a power of attorney wants settling beforehand, is set out in the notary appointment.

Realistically this block is therefore rarely shorter than three weeks — and that is not an annoyance but the point at which a contract can still be changed. After it, it stands.

This is where most sellers are surprised, and it is the costliest error for planning. The purchase price does not fall due with the signature but only once several conditions are met — the notary gives express notice of the due date. By then the following must as a rule be in place:

The priority notice is registered; it secures the buyer’s claim to the transfer of ownership (section 883 BGB). The release documents for old land charges are available — the bank that financed twenty years ago must first issue them. And the municipality has declared that it will not exercise its right of pre-emption: in practice a negative certificate under section 28 BauGB, and every sale waits for it, even though nobody ever exercises such a right.

Each of these hangs on somewhere outside your reach. That is why several weeks usually lie between the recording and the money arriving — and why it is a poor plan to put a move, a deposit or a care-home commitment on the day of signing.

This block chiefly concerns the buying side, and it runs on after payment. Ownership of land passes when the parties are agreed and the change is entered in the land register (section 873 BGB). Until then the priority notice is the protection, not an ownership entry.

One point slows things here particularly often and is little known: the land registry may enter the buyer only once the tax office has issued the clearance certificate — and that comes only when the land transfer tax has been paid (section 22 GrEStG). The tax assessment, in turn, comes when it comes.

For the selling side this is usually immaterial: the money is there, possession has passed. It matters for a community of heirs waiting for completion in order to divide the estate — and for everyone who believes the matter is settled with the notary appointment. It is settled only with the registration.

What can be speeded up — and what cannot

What can be speeded up: obtaining the documents, because it can be brought forward · the decision within the family, because it needs only an ordered conversation · clarifying succession, where a notarial will exists · and the question of who attends the appointment, because a power of attorney can be settled beforehand.

What cannot: the two-week rule where it applies, the processing times of public offices, the negative certificate, the bank’s release documents, the tax assessment — and the time a buyer needs to be able to afford a house.

The most useful consequence is a sequence: first order, then assess, then offer. Anyone who begins the other way round loses in the end exactly the weeks they wanted to save at the start.

We have a buyer. Why does it still take time?: Because the agreement is the beginning of completion. After it come the draft contract with its two-week rule, the notary appointment, registration of the priority notice, the bank’s release documents and the municipality’s negative certificate. Only when these are in place does the notary give notice that the price is due.
Can we plan the move for the date of the recording?: Better not. Several weeks usually lie between the recording and payment of the price, and the transfer of possession, benefits and burdens is normally tied in the contract to payment in full. Plan the move after the notice that payment is due, not before.
What if one co-heir does not sign?: Then the sale stops, and no deadline changes that: a community of heirs disposes of an estate asset jointly. That is no occasion for pressure but for a conversation in which the objections are named — often it is not about money but about someone not having been heard.