Closing Date - What exactly happens?

yellow hen

We are in the process of agreeing a closing date for our house sale and another for our house purchase. What exactly happens on the closing date? Ie. For our house sale, by close of business on the agreed date, should we have removed all our possessions from said house and handed in the keys to the estate agent (or solicitor)? What are we required to sign on that date?

Similarly, for our purchase, do we sign new property deeds? And on the agreed date, should we expect to receive the keys for our new home?

riclad

When you buy a house , you sign a contract weeks before hand.
to buy house x ,for say 100k,
when you sell the house ,you leave the house empty.
give the keys to the owner or an estate agent,
House must be empty, apart from the fixtures and fittings ,
as noted in the contract.
You may agree to leave the carpets ,curtains, as part of the transaction .
Your solicitor tells you the closing date,
you can move in th morning of that day.
IF you have a mortgage the bank holds onto the deeds ,until the loan is paid off,
you might not even see the deeds for 25 years .
YOU sign a contract to buy the house .
You will recieve a bill from the estate agent for the sale of the house,
maybe 1.5 per cent plus vat probably before the closing date.
check the contract, are carpets, curtains ,kitchen press,s included in it.
The lawyers cant complete all the paperwork,
until they recieve a contract from both seller,buyer/
make a note of the esb,meter, gas meter reading ,on the last day you are in the house .
And the first day you move into a new home.
Ask your lawyer for more info if you need it.
You,ll Recieve the keys from an estate agent or from the home owner in person.
on or shortly before the closing date,
closing date =day you are legally allowed to live in the house .
Deeds may be 100 years old,
no one signs em,
they are the original legal documents that prove and show the ownership and boundarys of the house.
all previous owners are listed on them.
you sign a contract to buy or sell a house ,
totally separate from the deeds .
3-4 pages long.
you read it, sign it, and give it to your lawyer.
in the case of a mortgage you also have to sign and fill in forms for the bank.

yellow hen

Thanks a million. So in relation to occupancy, we must be prepared to vacate our own home on the morning of closing and should expect to receive the keys of our new home on the day of that closing?

Diane Selwyn

When I bought I agreed to the closing date suggested by the vendor but it came and went and they were still messing around looking for documentation - I ended up getting a couple of day's notice that they suddenly were ready and wanted to close before they took off on holiday or it would be another month. I'm sure some vendors are more organised but you might want to have a plan b just in case!

April 73

Your solicitor will have to liaise with your purchaser's solicitor and your seller's solicitor to agree that closing for both properties takes place on the same date

Do you know if your buyers are selling a property or if your sellers are purchasing another property?

yellow hen

@ Diane delete, we're already at plan b.
@ April 73, we're a negative equity sale and therefore cannot close on same day. Bank needs time to calculate residual balance before new drawdown.

April 73

That puts a different slant on it.

On the day the sale of your house closes you need to have removed your belongings, submitted final electricity/gas/water meter readings, and have arranged to either hand the keys to the new owners or get the estate agent to do that once your solicitor confirms receipt of the money & that keys can be released.

Where are you & your belongings going until you can complete the purchase of the new property?

April 73

One thing I don't understand is why the bank needs time to work out the residual balance? Can they not work that out in advance based on the closing date?
Why is it different to working out the outstanding balance on any mortgage when a sale occurs?
It would be much easier to close both on the same day.

yellow hen

Our temporary arrangements are yet to be decided!! You'd think the bank could work out the sums beforehand but they 'need' min 3 working days.

April 73

Are you taking the shortfall forward to the new mortgage as a negative equity mortgage? Seems crazy that the bank can't allow the sale & purchase to happen on the same day.
I used a decent moving company earlier this year - they would have stored all my stuff for me if they had not been able to move it into the new house the same day. It was looking like that for a while as we only got the keys at 4pm! I'll pm you the name if you want?

riclad

I don,t think its reasonable for you
to expect to the bank to arrange the closing date of purchase to
be exactly the same as the selling date of your home,
as there,s no connection between the two .
they are 2 separate transactions .
you may have to rent a house for a few weeks ,
and find a place to store your belongings .
SO i presume you are getting a bank loan to buy the house,
and they are giving you a loan to cover the negative equity balance .
So it sounds like it might be a week or more , before they can drawdown the new mortgage .
Maybe leave your furniture with friends or relations for the time before moving into the new house .You may be told to go to the house at a certain time,
to pick up the keys, from the agent ,or home owner on the closing date .
OR to be precise the closing date is the day the seller ,must vacate the house,
hand over the keys,
and his furniture, clothes etc must be removed before the closing day.

Jen44

Just closed on a property two weeks ago. On closing day the solicitors did final checks once the funds were received and transferred to the vendors solicitor and when all was in order my solicitor phoned me to say I could go ahead and collect the keys to the property from the vendors solicitor. There was nothing more to it, we signed everything we needed to the day we signed contracts

The Mulk

Jen44 wrote: »

Just closed on a property two weeks ago. On closing day the solicitors did final checks once the funds were received and transferred to the vendors solicitor and when all was in order my solicitor phoned me to say I could go ahead and collect the keys to the property from the vendors solicitor. There was nothing more to it, we signed everything we needed to the day we signed contracts

How close to the closing day where contracts signed in your case, we're looking at a closing date of November 9th but haven't signed the contracts for our house yet. The buyers have signed for ours and we have everything in order from our end for the house we hope to move too.The house is currently empty.
If we sign next week, is 2 weeks too optimistic for a closing date.

Jen44

we signed contracts around two and a half weeks before we closed. The main delay was the bank issuing the funds the solicitors were great at their end

The Mulk

Jen44 wrote: »

we signed contracts around two and a half weeks before we closed. The main delay was the bank issuing the funds the solicitors were great at their end

Thanks for that, the vendors solicitor said he'd have the contracts ready early this week , but still no sign.
Our solicitor won't let us countersign our sales contracts until he has the contracts for our new house in.
Banks hopefully won't be too much trouble issuing the funds.

Jen44

The best of luck with it!! Its very stressful right till you have the keys in your hands!

The Mulk

Jen44 wrote: »

The best of luck with it!! Its very stressful right till you have the keys in your hands!

Tell me about it:pac:

Ursus Horribilis

The bank was what slowed things up for me too. There must have been quite a backlog in there. It took them ages to send the solicitor the mortgage pack. I can't remember too well now but I think the closing date for the sale got pushed back for the best part of a week too.

yellow hen

We've known for some time that the gap between closing dates was going to be about 5 working days and we're ok with that now. We're essentially going to be living in hotels and in between that travelling the country to grandparents so it's really not ideal. If it goes on longer than a week, I may have a breakdown. Also three months pregnant and not feeling great........and we've a two year old to ensure isn't too traumatised by the whole moving turmoil!

Jen44

if it helps yellow hen my 19 month old has settled great in the new house she just got into her cot as usual and went off to sleep.....the dog on the other hand is a nervous wreck!