Drafting purchase agreements from title deeds and IDs

A purchase agreement is assembled from two kinds of sources. The title deed supplies the property: identifiers, description, registered owners. The parties’ IDs supply the people: names, personal numbers, addresses. Draft by extracting from both, checking each value against its source once, and entering it into the agreement exactly as recorded.

What the title deed gives you

The deed, or the current register extract, is the authority on everything about the property. Copy from it literally. The values it carries are precisely the ones a buyer’s lawyer and the registry will check.

• The property identifier: parcel, lot or cadastral number, exactly as registered, digit by digit.
• The legal description: boundaries, area, building and unit numbers where they apply.
• The registered owners, spelled as the register spells them, with their shares if ownership is divided.
• Encumbrances: mortgages, easements, notes that must be disclosed or discharged before closing.

The seller’s name in the agreement must match the register. If the register says one thing and the ID says another, because of a marriage, a correction or an old typo, the difference is not yours to settle by taste. It needs a document that explains it, not a quiet choice of whichever spelling looks nicer.

What the IDs give you, and what they do not

Each party’s ID supplies the identity block: full name as printed, personal or national number, address, and date of birth where the agreement wants it. The ID does not prove the person owns anything. It proves who they are; the register proves what they own. Keeping the two roles straight is most of what careful conveyancing means at the drafting stage.

Why do amounts appear in figures and words?

Because figures are easy to mistype and easy to alter, and words are hard to do either to. Writing the price twice, once as digits and once spelled out, is an old proofing device: the two versions must say the same thing, and a reader can check one against the other. A mismatch between them invites dispute over which was intended, so treat the pair as one value.

• Fix the figure first, from the signed offer or the instruction, and verify it there.
• Write the words from the verified figure, then read the words back against the digits once.
• State the currency with both forms, and keep deposit, balance and total arithmetic consistent through the document.

Multiple parties without cross-wiring

Two sellers, two buyers, a spouse consenting, an attorney-in-fact signing for an absent owner: five identity blocks in one agreement is normal. The characteristic error is not a wrong value but a right value in the wrong place. One buyer’s personal number lands under the other buyer’s name, and every individual value still checks out against an ID.

• Keep one value set per person, and fill each party block only from its own set.
• After filling, read each name together with the role word next to it: this person a seller, that person a buyer.
• Watch shared values. Spouses often share an address, and a shared value is where swapped blocks hide longest.

The short version

The deed is the authority on the property, the IDs on the people, and the register spelling wins over the ID when the two disagree, once you have a document explaining why. Check parcel numbers digit by digit. Treat figures and words as one value, written from one verified source. With several parties, check that each block belongs to its person, not just that each value exists somewhere. Review stays quick because every entered value has exactly one source to check it against.