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This is a brief summary of real estate contracts. This summary does not cover all aspects of the contract. This video has been made specifically for Real Estate Agents to use as an unofficial educational resource. Nothing in this video is intended to convey legal advice or best practices in any field. This video is only intended to give general advice on broad topics relating to contracts and the closing process at large. For legal advice please contact an attorney and for lending advice please contact a lender.
1. IDENTIFYING PARTIES IN YOUR CONTRACT
You’d think this section was fairly simple, but this is where we get problems all the time in my office. You are identifying the people who are going to be on title and the people who are already on title.
If you have a husband and wife but only the husband is going to be on the loan, we still need the husband and wife to be listed on the contract. Likewise, the sellers in the contract need to include everyone on title. This helps the attorney because we give those names to the title searcher/title abstractor and we ask that person to pull title on the property to make sure it’s clean, but also to check the buyer(s) and seller(s) personally. We want to see if we have any liens, judgments, or issues to look at. If you leave parties off the contract, the attorney may not know who to search and that can lead to issues later on when the lender mentions that someone is missing and needs to be added. When this happens, the attorney’s office has to update the title search. We can always correct it on the back end — it won’t destroy the contract or prevent it from being legally binding — it just may slow things down by a couple of days.
Including all these names up front helps you do the best job possible to create a smooth transaction so that everyone wins and, at the end of the day, not only do your clients come away happy, but you’ll look like a hero because it was so smooth and easy. This will help you build long-term relationships with your clients.
2. ENTERING A COMPLETE ADDRESS
This one also seems fairly simple. We can accept the most basic, simple form of an address (street number & name, city, county, state, zip), and the Realtor should never stress out about this section, but here are some ways to make the process even easier and smoother.
If you have the tax information for your property, the PPIN would be a great thing to include. You don’t have to include this in the actual contract and can simply add it to your email when you send the contract in to the attorney’s office, but this will guarantee we are looking at the right property.
TIP: If your property has a zero as the street number or doesn’t have a street number at all, it’s very beneficial to include the PPIN or parcel number with your contract.
Sometimes you’ll be dealing with land or properties that don’t necessarily have an address to give and you wonder What do I do here? Your seller should have a legal description of the property, so you should be able to plug in a piece of that legal; if you’re worried about any confusion at all, the better way to do it is to share the seller’s deed directly with the attorney. That’s an absolute guarantee that we’re going to find the right property.
Need more help with your contract? Call us at 256-427-2760.
