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What are the Real Estate Closing Expectations for Buyers and Sellers?

By Thomas E. Haught

Whether you’re the buyer or seller of a home, the expectations of a real estate closing are easily met with the right attorney by your side.

Are you the buyer?

Congratulations! You bought a home! If it’s time for your closing, all your contingencies have been satisfied, including attorney approval, home inspection and financing. It’s been six weeks since you and the Seller entered into a contract and now it’s time to consummate the transaction.

As the Buyer, you have some work to do.

1. You must sign a loan package. In a nutshell, your loan package is the agreement between you and your bank. Your bank agrees to loan you money to buy your new home and you agree to pay the bank back — probably for the next 30 years! Many years ago, your loan package would not have been much more than a note and mortgage. How times have changed! You are going to have to sign dozens and dozens of documents, but your attorney will explain each document to you.
2. You and your attorney must review the Seller and title documents. This happens as soon as all the loan documents are done and the title company has sent those documents to your lender for review. The Seller’s attorney has prepared, and the Seller has executed, several documents that basically transfer the property, both real and personal, from the Seller to the Buyer.
3. The Seller’s attorney and/or the title company provides a waived title, or a title policy. Your attorney will review this to ensure that you are getting clear title to the policy. You certainly don’t want to purchase property that has any liens or encumbrances.
4. Your lender authorizes the title company to fund the transaction. This happens after your lender completes their review of the paperwork that the parties have executed. When that happens, you are a homeowner!

Are you the Seller?

The Seller of a real estate transaction has much less work to do than the Buyer. Oftentimes, Sellers don’t even attend the closing. In either case, what is their real estate closing expectations?

1. Visit your attorney in advance. By visiting your attorney prior to the closing, you can pre-sign the necessary paperwork and skip the closing altogether.
2. If you do attend your sale closing, your attorney will have you execute several documents that transfer the real and personal property to the seller. The title company will also have you execute several documents, each with various purposes. It is also not unusual for the Buyer’s lender to require that you execute documents. Your attorney will explain these documents for you.
3. After that, your job is to sit back and relax. The Buyer, sitting across the table from you, has a lot more work to do, because the Buyer must execute all documents that the Buyer’s lender requires as a condition of lending money to the Buyer to purchase your home.

Once all the documents are signed, and the Buyer’s lender has reviewed them and authorized the title company to fund the transaction —you are officially homeless! But if you had equity in your home, the title company is going to hand you a big, fat proceeds check to make you feel better!

The real estate closing expectations are undaunting with Gardi, Haught, Fischer & Bhosale LTD at your side. Gardi, Haught, Fischer & Bhosale LTD, is an area leader when it comes to residential and commercial real estate transactions. In 2017 alone, Gardi, Haught, Fischer & Bhosale LTD, closed nearly 2,000 residential real estate deals. If you are buying or seller your home, trust the firm that does it right — Gardi, Haught, Fischer & Bhosale LTD

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