The “Contract” is the written agreement between the Seller and Buyer covering the terms that have been negotiated.  For residential property, a Contract must be in the possession of your nominated Real Estate Agent or yourself (if endeavouring to sell the property privately) prior to any marketing of the property.  This is where I come in.  Upon receiving your instructions, I will prepare the Contract and forward it to yourself and the Agent.   In preparing the Contract, I will need to obtain certain documents from various government organisations, which are required by law to be included in the Contract, some of which can take up to 1-2 weeks to be obtained.  It is a good idea to keep this in mind when deciding to give me your instructions, ie. contact me 1-2 weeks before you are wanting the property to go ‘on the market’.