The contract to close checklist
Nine dates sit between a signed contract and a set of keys. They are all written into the contract, in different clauses, counted from different days, and none of them announce themselves. Here is each one in order. What it asks of you, what tends to go wrong there, and what your client should hear when it clears.
Deadlines are counted in calendar days on most state forms and in business days on some. A few states measure from delivery rather than from the last signature. Read your own contract for the count. The order below does not change.
Why a checklist is not the hard part
Every agent knows these nine dates. The work is not knowing them, it is holding all of them for six weeks across four transactions while showing houses. Deadlines are rarely missed out of ignorance. They are missed on the Tuesday you had three showings and a relocation call.
So print this, or keep it open, but put the dates somewhere that tells you first. A calendar you have to remember to check is the same as no calendar.
The nine dates, in order
Timings are the common ranges on residential contracts, not rules. Your contract wins every disagreement with this page.
The effective date
Every other date on this list counts from this one, so read it off the contract and write it down before anything else. Most state forms date from final acceptance, not from the buyer's offer.
Agents count from the wrong day. Say the seller signed on Friday and delivery was Monday. A ten-day inspection period then ends on two different dates, and only one of them is right.
The buyer wants to know it is real and what happens next. One short note with the closing date and the two deadlines closest to now is enough.
Earnest money delivered
The buyer wires or delivers the deposit to the escrow holder named in the contract, and you get the receipt. File it. It is the first thing a listing agent asks about.
This is the most common breach in the first week, and it is almost never deliberate. The buyer travels, the wire instructions sit unread, and the deadline passes while everyone assumes it was handled.
Buyers are nervous about sending money to a company they have never heard of. Tell them who is receiving it, when it is due, and that you will confirm when it lands.
Inspection completed
Book the inspector early, get access from the listing side, and be there if you can. The report is what the buyer negotiates with, and it stops being useful once the objection window shuts.
Scheduling. Good inspectors are booked a week out in a busy market, and an occupied house adds another day of coordination. A late inspection compresses the negotiation into hours.
The buyer reads a 40-page report full of red text and panics. Say ahead of time that every house produces one, and that you will go through it together.
Inspection objection and resolution
Check whether your form gives you one date or two. Colorado-style contracts separate the objection deadline from the resolution deadline. Texas, Florida and California run a single option or due diligence period with one cancellation date.
This is the tightest window in the whole transaction. A seller who takes two days to answer a repair request leaves the buyer no room to counter.
This is the point where a deal feels most likely to die. Explain what was asked for, what the seller said, and what happens if they do not agree.
Appraisal received
You do not control this one. The lender orders it, the appraiser schedules it, and you chase the status. Send comparable sales to the appraiser if your state allows it.
A low appraisal, and the delay before anyone tells you. Appraisals in slower markets are landing under contract price often enough that it belongs in the buyer's expectations from day one.
If the number comes in low, say the number, then the options plainly. The seller reduces, the buyer covers the gap, the parties split it, or the buyer walks with the deposit intact under the appraisal contingency.
Title commitment reviewed
Read the commitment when it arrives instead of on closing week. Exceptions, easements, unreleased liens and an old survey are all fixable with time and expensive without it.
Nobody opens it. Title problems are the quietest deadline on the list, and they surface at the signing table. A missing lien release takes a week to obtain.
Most buyers do not know what title insurance is. One sentence on what was checked and that nothing is outstanding does more for their nerves than the document itself.
Loan commitment or financing deadline
Confirm in writing with the lender that underwriting is clear and any conditions are satisfied. This is the date the buyer's deposit stops being fully refundable in most contracts.
Conditional approval gets treated as final approval. A buyer who opens a credit card or changes jobs after preapproval can fail underwriting late, with the deposit now at risk.
Tell them when the financing condition ends and what it means for their deposit. Buyers deserve to know the exact day their money stops being easy to get back.
Final walkthrough
Walk the house with the buyer. Check the agreed repairs, run the taps, test the systems, and confirm that what was meant to stay is still there.
Repairs that were promised and not done, and a house left dirtier than anyone expected. Both are easier to solve the day before than at the closing table.
Set the expectation that this is a check, not a second inspection. Buyers who arrive expecting perfection find a scratch on the floor and want to renegotiate.
Closing
Confirm the final figures against the closing disclosure, tell the buyer the wire amount and the deadline, and remind them what identification to bring.
Wire fraud, and the funding delay. Criminals target this exact day with a spoofed email carrying new instructions, so confirm banking details by phone with a number the buyer already had.
Give them the time, the address, the amount and what to bring, in a note they can find again on their phone. Then tell them when the keys are theirs.
The wording for each of those notes is already written. Twelve email templates cover all nine milestones, plus a low appraisal and a closing date that moves. They are free to copy and there is nothing to sign up for.
Or let the contract keep the list for you
Every date above is already in the contract you just signed. That is the whole idea behind Closewell. You send us the executed contract, and we read the closing date and every deadline hanging off it. On the morning each one comes due, we write the note we would send your client and email it to you. You send it as written, change a line, or skip it. It goes out under your name, with your address at the bottom, so your client writes back to you.
Your first close is free and we do not ask for a card. After that it is $99 a close, against the $350 to $600 a transaction coordinator charges for the same job. See what it costs.
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