SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED

By Mike Lightbourn

Well done! You’ve prequalified for a loan and your offer on a home has been accepted. Now you can sit back and relax.

Not yet!

Once the acceptance is in place, contact your loan officer. The bank will ask for an appraisal on your property to make sure it’s worth the money you want to borrow.

This is one reason why sellers shouldn’t overprice their homes. The bank isn’t going to lend money if the property isn’t worth the requested amount.

The bank has a list of approved appraisers that can be drawn from to do the valuation.

While this is being done, it’s a good idea to have an inspection carried out on the home.

If there are problems you weren’t aware of, get an estimate on what it would cost to rectify them and you can ask your BREA agent to re-negotiate who pays for these items if your proposed home purchase was subject to a satisfactory home inspection.

Alternatively, the seller can agree to do the repairs. This is something your lawyer will handle for you.

LAWYERS

Once your offer has been accepted, notify your lawyer. Your lawyer or your BREA agent will have made the offer on your behalf. Your lawyer will be responsible for approving the contract, and will deal with the title search and completion of the sale.

If you’re a first time home buyer and the value of the home and mortgage is under $500,000, you may qualify for stamp tax exemption, which will translate into significant savings.

EXCHANGE AND COMPLETION

The buyer’s and seller’s lawyers will be in contact to make sure the sale goes as smoothly as possible.

The contract is agreed, the deposit is paid and the contract is signed, and the completion date is set.

This is it FOR NOW.

Check with your lawyer before the completion date to make sure things are progressing on schedule.

In my experience, it is highly unlikely that the sale will close on the appointed date. In fact, it would almost be considered a miracle for that to happen.

Typically, a sale should close within two to three months, but it varies. In fact, sometimes it takes that long to get a sales contract signed!

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(Mike Lightbourn is president of Coldwell Banker Lightbourn Realty)