Home Sale Closing 101

By Adam Ciboch


You've done your research to ensure a smooth real estate transaction. You've successfully navigated open housing, finding the house of your dreams and crunching numbers to verify it was a financially feasible option. This is your dream house, and you've just made an offer to buy. A counter offer might even have been presented by the seller. By the culmination of the negotiations both you and the seller had accepted the price and terms. What's the next step?

Welcome to the closing on your new home. This is the day when the new buyer and the home's previous owner finish the property's legal transfer. Once this process has been completed, the buyer receives the keys to his or her new home.

Not too difficult, right? To ensure a proper closing, there are several key things that need to take place, in reality. By presenting a homeowner's insurance receipt, the buyer needs to prove to their mortgage lender that they purchased insurance on the property. To prove that the price listed on the contract is what was agreed upon, the buyer and seller also have to sign paperwork to that effect. Depending on what was agreed upon, closing costs also need to be paid to the closing agent by the buyer, seller or both. Both buyer and seller must review all other relevant documents after this.

It is also crucial to establish an escrow account, on top of paperwork review. It is the closing agent's job to establish this account, and its primary use is to allow the buyer to cover things like the property taxes, insurance policy costs, interim interest and, at times, even private mortgage insurance. The buyer's subsequent signing of all property mortgage-related documents functions as an execution of them. As agreed to in the mortgage, the closing agent then receives a check from the lender that covers the cost to purchase the home.

Lastly, keys to the property and the property's title are handed over to the buyer. So there is a public record of the buyer's new interest in the property, the title and sometimes other legal documents must be recorded. It opens the buyer up to other peoples' claims that they own the property if the property isn't properly recorded. A shifty seller could have sold the property to two separate people in some instances. In some instances the person who records their title first is considered the true owner, depending on the state in which you live. Once done with the recording process, the house belongs to the new buyer in full.




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