The closing date of your purchase is the date you will will own your new home. The statutory warranty deed is recorded, and if you get a loan, the deed of trust is recorded. Finally, after months of searching, after a couple of years of planning your retirement and your move, after listing and selling your other home, you will get to move into your Sequim home on the closing date. Planning the closing date takes some diligence to coordinate your transition, but there is a contractual aspect of handling the closing date that is important if you are to have a smooth closing and transition. That’s what I want to share in this article.
The Closing Date
When you draft an offer with your buyer’s agent, you will include the closing date that works best for you. Coordinating the sale or closing of your other home, hiring movers and making the transition is no small challenge. When your buyer’s agent submits your offer, you can only hope that your preferred closing date will also work for the seller. The seller also has to plan a move, and maybe the seller is buying another home, too. But once you’ve both agreed on a closing date, here’s a potential issue that could create a lot of stress for a lot of people–changing the closing date.
Changing The Closing Date
From a buyer’s perspective, changing the closing date because of a change of plans does not sound complicated. But the seller will have to reschedule their own purchase of another home, the hiring their movers, and coordinating all the other details associated with their move. A change in a closing date requires an addendum signed by the buyer and seller, but it also means the lender and the escrow company will have to make adjustments and redraft their own paperwork. Many dates associated with a closing (the inspections and other due diligence items) are all tied to the date of mutual acceptance. Changing a closing date will have a ripple effect on a number of key dates, and it will require the coordination of many parties involved in your transaction. If the seller is buying another home, a change in their closing date with you might necessitate a change in the closing date of that other transaction, which involves all of those parties.
Changing the closing date is not something that should be done lightly, and if at all possible, it should be left alone once you have mutual acceptance.
Last Updated on September 21, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
