The offer is accepted and everyone exhales. The agent has done the hard part, the seller has a number they are happy with, and for a fortnight it feels like the work is over.
Then the invoices start. Not at registration, when the proceeds land. Now, while the file is still with the attorneys. Most sellers have no idea this is coming, and the person they phone about it is you.
Before anything can register
A transfer cannot be lodged until the municipality issues a rates clearance certificate, and it will not issue one until rates, refuse and services are paid several months forward. In a sectional title or an estate, levies and HOA fees work the same way, through a different body and on their own timeline.
Any arrear account has to be settled first as well, however old it is. A seller who has been carrying a disputed municipal bill for two years finds out at the worst possible moment, with a transfer waiting behind it.
Certificates, and what they turn up
An electrical certificate of compliance is required on every residential sale in the country. Beyond that it depends on the property and the province: gas, electric fence, plumbing, beetle, pool.
Solar has its own requirements. A grid-tied system has to be registered with the municipality or Eskom, and where it never was, the buyer can insist it is put right before transfer at the seller's cost. Any inspection can also turn into a repair.
The inspection fee is the small part. The repair is the part nobody has budgeted for.
Contracts that do not end when the sale does
Rented solar is the one that catches people. The agreement does not fall away on transfer. It has to be ceded to the buyer, who has to agree to take it on, or settled by the seller. Almost nobody reads that clause when they sign up.
The bond needs ninety days notice to the bank, or penalty interest follows. Alarm, fibre and armed response each have their own notice period. None of them are large on their own. Together they are a number.
The move itself
A removal company has to be booked weeks ahead. Storage, if there is a gap between moving out and moving in. And whatever it costs to get into the next place, a deposit and a lease, or the transfer costs on another purchase. None of that waits for this sale to register either.
The cost of the gap
Every item above falls due before registration, while your seller is still waiting for the proceeds. A deal signed this month registers at the busiest end of the year, so the wait is longer than usual.
For the agent, the real cost is not the money. It is the position it puts you in. You did not create the cost, you cannot move the municipality's schedule, and you are still the one who has to explain it. It is the point where a delighted seller turns into an anxious one, and where you stop being the person who sold their home and start being the person who keeps bringing bad news.
Let us be the ones to tell them
That is where TransBridj comes in. Hand us the deal when the offer is accepted and we will take that conversation. We will walk your seller through what is coming, when each item falls due and roughly what it costs.
And because we bridge those costs, we arrive with the answer in the same call as the news. The clearance figures, the certificates and the compliance costs are covered while the file moves through transfer, so your seller is not funding the sale out of their own pocket while they wait for it.
Your seller gets a sale with no surprises in it. You stay the person who got them the price.