I was wondering if anyone here had gone through this procedure when selling their property and what experience they had with it. I'm not sure of the German term, Terminverkauf perhaps? In a nutshell, you agreee to sell your property at a specified date in the future and the buyer has paid a small downpayment, 10% for example, in order to guarantee the purchase. We're considering it as an option for selling our appartment while a construction project is ongoing. The advantage for us is that we can move when the house is ready, rather than renting in the meantime. The advantage for the buyer is they get the proerty at today's price and not of that in a year's time (which, knowing our area, is likely to be higher) and it may be more convenient if they are tied to a longer term rental agreement.
How amenable are banks to this situation? What are the potential pitfalls (apart from the buyer pulling out and so losing their deposit)? Has it worked for anyone here?
The agent selling the construction said she does it all the time and it rarely falls through, but she would say that wouldn't she? I would like to hear about experiences from the otehr side, as it were, good and bad.

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Stealing jokes off the internet and passing them off as my own since 1995

I haven't actually done this, but I know it happens quite frequently. What is important is to have the transaction notarized.

We did it.

We actually advanced to contract signature with a completion date to be set via a certain mechanism - basically completion of our build or earlier date by agreement. In the end circumstances changed and we agreed to complete within 6 months of the contract having been signed.

I don't recall the bank having an issue. The bulk of money was for transfer on completion - so no different from any other sale. We did have a serious deposit paid by the sellers and hammered out what would happen to it if either party in the meantime pulled out. The deposit was put in escrow.

You would have a problem probably if you were trying to use this deposit to finance part of your build - in that if I were your buyer I wouldn't agree to it but you never know ..

So the bank was quite happy to finance the build once the sales contract was agreed?

Well we had a very small mortgage so it was not an issue - but as I recall it could have been.

Really it depends on value, size of mortgage, income, age, etc, etc, etc. So really, your best bet is to go and talk to your (hopefully) friendly bank manager and discuss your particular case. Bonne chance.

I've done it and it works fine, if you want any detailled info, send me a pm and i'll try and help