Seller Turning Possession Over After Closing?

[Ed Pawlowski]

I can answer that. That want to leave as much as they can so they don't have to get rid of it. Since they are going to an RV the don't need the furnishings and will probably have a sale. Or have Salvation Army pick it up, etc.

If there is a nice desk or table that you like, fine, keep it. If it is not your style, let it go.

As for the closing and not moving, they may need the money to pay for the RV so need a few days. There are ways they can get around it but would cost them money for a short term swing loan.

When we bought our last house, the seller asked that a few things could stay in the garage for a few days before someone picked them up. We did that and it was a couple of days before our furniture arrived.

This was a new house and different situation. I wanted to stay the night after we closed and a local furniture and appliance company made that possible by delivering a bed and refrigerator the day after we closed. It was a week before we had our furniture but a cheap coffee maker and a few dishes worked. It was fun, but the next time I move it will be in a zipped up body bag.

[Elle]

Hi trader_4 and others,

The deal is off.

The offer was for a cash deal; closing to be on Nov 19 but possession on the 22nd; with some amount of the purchase price held back until a walk through was completed. My realtor then corrected herself and said; 'oops the title/escrow company will not do this plan.' Much dickering between seller, the agents and me occurred. I read more, including here, and balked at the seller's insistence that they could not be out by the closing date and could not pay anything for "possession escrow."

Evidently the home sale was key to their buying their RV.

Why they could not close, live in a hotel or airbnb a few nights, then buy their RV remains a mystery. I have been airbnb'ing it for a month, things in storage. All their money seems to be in the house. They do not have the money to put a few thousand dollars in escrow.

At one point I wrote my realtor that I thought it would be easier on all if the seller would just turn possession over on the closing date. She agreed. But oh no, this is not the way things went down.

I would like to think the two realtors were twisting the arm of the seller, to just turn over possession on the closing date, the way they were twisting my arm.

I did not appreciate being the one expected to take some risk. As folks here and elsewhere pointed out, "how much risk" is unknowable. Trust? A perfect stranger? Over something as expensive as a house?

I had enough and instructed my realtor to suspend negotiations. The deal is cancelled.

I am fine continuing to look. Investors buying homes for more than asking are still around. I do not like competing against these investors but at least it's not as crazy as this past summer. One has no idea what to offer, and I hesitate to do an escalation clause.

Zillow evidently is dumping 7000 homes onto the market, in it and its partners effort to make money quick. As interested, see

Thank you, gfretwell, trader_4, micky and Ed for sharing your thoughts and experiences. They all help.

[trader_4]

And that's a good example of why this just doesn't sound right, unless they are so short of money or credit that they can't rent a storage unit and motel room. And even then, they are going to sell a lot of the stuff in the house, why not just do it now, have a couple of garage sales, put stuff up on Craigslist, they could surely get enough to pay for a motel and storage unit.

I have been airbnb'ing it for a month, things in storage. All their money seems to be in the house. They do not have the money to put a few thousand dollars in escrow.

You can bet they were.

You know there are more crazy people, eg Qanon types today than ever before. They could be some of those nuts, there are sub groups that believe the world is coming to and end soon, the govt is going to send them to concentration camps if they are not vaccinated, etc. And most of them look just like mom and pop types too. Some of them are selling everything, going to the wilderness to live off grid. With the RV, they could be among them. So who knows what's up with these nuts.

I think you made the right call. If it's true that another deal fell through because of the buyer, they can't afford to buy an RV and you're a cash buyer, you'd think they would be bending over backwards to make the deal.

[Ralph Mowery]

read more, including here, and balked at the seller's insistence that they could not be out by the closing date and could not pay anything for "possession escrow."

The buyer usually takes the risk when they have to put some money down to start with. That is I have given and received a check for $ 500 to $ 1000 that the realitor holds . If the deal falls through for a good reason like they can not get a loan the check comes back, but if the buyer backs out for a reason not stated such as they just changed their minds the seller gets the money.

Those people will probably have a hard time getting the deal like they wanted you to give them.

I sold a house person to person. The buyer wanted me to raise the price on paper about $ 5000 so they could get a loan and have some money left over. They trusted me to give them the $ 5000 back when I received the money from the lawyer's office. As it was their risk I did that. As this was a one time home sale there was no capital gains tax on the house as we sold it for over 3 times what we bought it for about 35 years before.

We sold the mother in laws house after she passed. While filling out the paper work for the government we just put down the tax value for the house. It was an old house and not worth vrey much. A relative wanted to buy the house and wanted us to put down a few thousand more than what we were going to sell it for which was the tax value. We declined on that as we would have had to pay capital gain taxes on the extra money.

[Ralph Mowery]

You are right about the nuts in this country now.

Before I bought this house I was looking at some land. It was about 3 acres. I made a fair offer I thought. However it was tied up among 3 families in a will. Some of them had the idea of dividing it up into 3 or more pieces of land and selling it off for more. I did not spend much time fooling with the group. I was not all that wild about getting that land anyway. Looked at the land on line by way of the tax records. It took them another year to sell the several plots and I doubt they came out with as much money if they had to pay to get the land divided and lawyer's fees.

[Jim Joyce]

I've bought and sold at least a dozen houses over the last 45 years. Whether I'm the buyer or the seller, I've always negotiated the closing date so that actual possession transfers on that date. I know it doesn't always work like that, but that's how I've managed to do it.

My sister sold her house about a month ago and moved into her RV while she looked for a new house. The closing date for that sale was negotiated with the buyer, as I described above. Yesterday she learned that her offer to buy a new house had been accepted, and as before, the closing date between her and the seller was negotiated. He's active duty military, being reassigned to Korea, and he asked to delay closing for 3 weeks so that he wouldn't have to move his family twice. My sister agreed.

So, at least in in my experience, it's more common to negotiate the closing date than it is to negotiate temporary possession after closing.

[Jim Joyce]

If a buyer wants a home warranty, I'm fine with that. The last one cost me less than $600 for a 1-year warranty, which is insignificant when compared to a $300K+ selling price.

[micky]

YOu're right. It's implied that there is a closing date or it couldn't be before the seller moves out.

[micky]

2 or 3 days ago John Kennedy, Jr, John-John, was supposed to return from that terrible plane crash and join Mr. trump as his running mate in 2024. A few hundred people were in Arizona to meet him. But he didn't show up. I've been in contact with John Jr. and he told me he didn't want to be trump's running mate, so that's probably why he didn't show up.

[Jim Joyce]

I heard they were delayed by heavy traffic and by the time they arrived, everyone had left. Impatient, I guess.

[Jim Joyce]

There is no way on god's green earth I would have done that.

What's going on over there? Does no one play it straight?

[angelica...]

ISTR there was some paperwork. This was in 1989, so the "address" of the details in my brain has been overwritten by more useful information.

Cindy Hamilton

[trader_4]

It was actually Dealey Plaza in Dallas, which makes it all the more bizarre. Like why would JFK Jr choose that of all places to make his return? And then it got expanded, they were expecting the return of JFK himself, never mind that he would have to be 104. Other dead celebrities, eg Robin Williams, were also expected. Those fools stood in the rain, waiting for hours. It would all be laughable if this Qanon bunch were not killing people with anti-vax craziness, destroying families, breaking them up and having an insurrection at the Capitol.

[trader_4]

Agree. By doing so, you're part of a conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud. Chances of getting caught are slim, but you never know. And if it did happen, you have the money trail that shows you did it. I have seen deals where the seller offers a deal where the house sells for say $200K and at closing the buyer gets a $5K credit back. Which I guess is OK as long as it's in the contract and not hidden.

[Thomas]

Be totally certain the seller owns the property.

[micky]

Does that work? I seem to just have weeds where I used to have old facts.

[gfretwell]

That is what title searches and title insurance is all about

[Marilyn Manson]

I have a friend that was on the deed for her mom's property. Mom wanted it that way to make it easier for the daughter to sell when Mom passed away. Well, as they say "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Turns out that many years ago, Mom/Dad and the neighbors negotiated over a small piece of land at the front of their lot. A small section of Mom's driveway was on the neighbor's property. It was a small triangle, maybe 5' wide, tapering down to nothing. In a friendly agreement, they swapped that triangle for a similar size triangle at the back of the lot. They got deeds for both pieces so it was all nice and legal. Dad's and Mom's names were on the deeds for the main lot and for the triangle.

Fast forward to more recent times and Dad passes away. As mentioned earlier, Mom wanted the daughter's name on everything. There's a business involved, the house, the triangle, a cottage, etc. so a lot of paperwork is flying back and forth.

Forward again to last year and Mom passes away. The daughter puts the house on the market, finds a buyer, lets them move in and pay rent while the closing gets scheduled.

Well, during the title search process, it is discovered that one document was not processed correctly when Dad died: The deed to the house. Somehow the daughter's name was never put on that deed. All that she owned was that little triangle of the driveway. She had no authority to sell the house since it was owned by the estate.

As executor of the estate, she did the next best thing. She sold the triangle to the estate for $1. She then worked with the town and had the 2 lots combined into a single lot. The estate then sold the property to the "renters". My friend is a really nice lady so she had significantly reduced the rent that the buyers were paying during this whole process. They were worried about losing their loan, interest rates going up, etc. In the end, it all worked out, but it took a few months and created a lot of stress.

[Wade Garrett]

Had a somewhat similar situation that was resolved differently.

Shortly after we were married 40+ years ago, my wife's ex wrote to her saying there was a problem with the property settlement they had agreed to several years previous when they were divorced.

Seems there was a two foot wide strip adjacent to their New England rural home site that had a separate deed which had not been signed off on when she quit claimed the place to him. He was currently trying to sell the house and that land was creating a title problem.

He had been a d*****ad during and after the divorce...and she was still pissed at him. So rather than just sign it, she told him she would sell the land to him for $5000.

Long story short- she ended up getting $3500!

[gfretwell]

Nothing like waiting to the last minute to get the title search huh?

I admit it is a lot easier here. Everything is online and you can get the same result as the title company sitting in your Lazboy once you learn how to navigate the site but I had a title search in hand before we even started selling my FIL's house. I knew it could be tricky since his wife was on the deed and she passed. Fortunately the UAW lawyer spotted the problem a year ago when he was rewriting his will and the proper quit claim was filed. His wife had been dead over a decade by then tho. Good thing nothing came up in the mean time. I showed the title company the same report they handed me ;-) They did give the buyer title insurance tho as part of that $200 search.