The team behind a move, and when each person shows up

A move looks like one transaction with one agent in the middle of it. It is really six or seven people doing separate jobs on a shared clock. Almost every deal I have seen go wrong went wrong for the same reason: the right professional was brought in too late to do anything useful. Not a bad lawyer. A good lawyer, called on the Friday before completion.

Here is the roster, what each seat does, and when they need to hear from you.

The REALTOR® comes first and stays the whole way

The agent is the only person on the list who is involved from the first conversation to possession day. That is the job: finding or positioning the property, pricing it against what has actually sold, writing the Contract of Purchase and Sale, negotiating the subjects and the dates, ordering the strata documents, and chasing every other person on this list until they have what they need.

What the agent needs from you at the start is honesty about your timeline, your finances and what you will not compromise on. What the agent needs later is a fast answer. Deals move in days, not weeks, and a client who takes two days to answer a question about a date is how a deal gets away.

The lender, and I say this from inside that seat

I am a licensed mortgage broker as well as an agent, so I get to watch this one from both sides. The lending seat is the one people engage last and should engage first.

Before you look at a single home, a broker or a bank should review your income, your credit and your down payment, and tell you what you can carry, not just what you qualify for. A lender will stress-test the mortgage, so the amount you can borrow and the amount you would enjoy paying are two different numbers, and you want to know both before you fall in love with a listing.

Once there is an accepted offer, the lender is why the financing subject exists, and that subject is not a formality. The lender orders an appraisal, verifies your income documents, checks the strata's financial health on a condo, and only then issues a commitment. Every document they ask for takes as long as you take to send it. Self-employed income, a gifted down payment, a co-signer, a rental already in the mix: each adds steps. Tell your broker on day one, not on the day the subject is due.

The lawyer or notary handles the part nobody sees

In British Columbia a lawyer or a notary public does the conveyancing: the title search, the statement of adjustments, registration at the Land Title Office, the Property Transfer Tax filing, and the movement of money on completion day. You will meet them once, near the end, to sign.

Engage them when the offer becomes firm, not the week of completion. That gives them time to pull title early and find the thing that needs fixing: an old easement, a covenant on the use of the land, a lien nobody disclosed, a name spelled differently on title than on your identification. Found three weeks out, all of those are solvable. Found on the last afternoon, they move your completion date and everyone behind you in the chain.

The inspector and the insurer sit on a clock you set

The home inspector works inside the subject period, which means the length of that period is a decision you make when you write the offer. Give it too few days and you are choosing whoever is available rather than whoever is good. On the report, what matters is not the list of deficiencies, it is which ones are structural, which are about water, and which are simply a house being a house.

Insurance is the one people forget until the lender asks for a binder. Some things make a home harder to insure: past claims, an old oil tank, knob and tube wiring, a roof near the end of its life. Get a quote during the subject period. Finding that out after subject removal is a genuinely bad week.

The accountant has to be asked before you sign, not after

How title is held is a tax decision as much as a legal one. Whose name goes on, in what proportion, whether a property is a principal residence or a rental, what happens when a family member helps with the down payment: those answers are cheap to arrange in advance and expensive to unwind afterwards. Ask an accountant before the contract is written. Nobody can retroactively change how you bought.

How I handle this

On a first meeting I ask two questions before we talk about homes: who is your lender, and do you have a lawyer or notary. If either answer is nobody, that is the week's work. I would rather delay a search than start one on a guess about what someone can buy.

When an offer goes firm, I send the contract to the lawyer or notary the same day, confirm the lender has the full document list, and put the inspection in the calendar with room to get a second opinion if the report warrants it. Then I work backwards from completion and mark the dates each person has to hit.

A good team is not a longer list of people. It is the same list, called early enough to be useful.

Thinking about buying or selling in the Fraser Valley? Message me and we will go through your options.