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.
33. SIGNATURES
In this section the purchaser will sign that everything above is what they are offering, and the seller will either accept, counter, or reject the offer. The seller cannot go above this line and make any changes or cross anything out before accepting. An acceptance can only be a 100% approval. If the seller wants anything in the contract altered, they need to tell the purchaser they will accept the contract under whatever those new terms may be, and then a new contract has to be drawn up to include those terms. If the seller chooses to counter, which is most common, they will sign that box and then fill out the three points below that apply to the counter. The first part states that although the seller has countered, no one is tied in to the contract yet so that if another better offer comes along the seller is free to accept that one instead. The second line states that the counter offer only applies for a certain number of days and expires upon the date listed here.
The above section is for the listing agent to fill out once the contract has been accepted and lists the binding agreement date.
The final section here is the agent brokerage information, which is extremely important for the attorney’s office. We need this information to make sure you get paid, to make sure everyone knows who you are, to make sure everything is filed correctly, etc. Sometimes when contracts are signed quickly the agents can forget to fill this section out, but this is all necessary information so that we can contact you about the contract.
TIP: Once everything is signed, it’s a good idea to get your contracts to the attorney as soon as you have them signed. We’re going to order title right away because we want to see what issues we may have to deal with and make sure we have enough time to get any issues corrected. It’s important that we move as quickly and efficiently as we can in order to avoid any possible closing delays.
Best of luck to everyone on their contracts and as always you can call our office if you need help or have any questions!
Need more help with your contract? Call us at 256-427-2760.
