Buying and selling private residential property

A private residential sale in Singapore typically runs through an Option to Purchase granted by the seller, exercised by the buyer within the option period, followed by completion under a sale and purchase agreement. The standard forms for both are published and widely used.

Alongside them, CEA publishes eight transaction checklists — separate versions for the seller, the buyer, the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent, and separate sets again for completed and uncompleted property. They are not optional paperwork for the agent versions: the checklists record that the required disclosures and verifications were made, and they are the document an agent is asked for when a transaction is later questioned.

The distinction between completed and uncompleted property matters more than it first appears, because the checks differ. An uncompleted unit brings the developer, the project account and the delivery timetable into scope in ways a resale does not.