You have an accepted contract on your home! You breathe a huge sigh of relief and start packing boxes, and prepare to move. My advice to you would be not so quick! I think one of the most important steps is for you to understand the timeline and work in the timeline to get out of the home that you have sold to the buyer.
When you accepted a contract it is most likely that you agreed to a settlement date and on that date you need to be out of the home. With the contract used in Central Virginia and Farmville, VA that means completely out and the home in broom clean condition on the agreed upon date. But let's back up a little.
Again with the contract that I use and understand, there are a few places in the contract where the buyer still has some control. As the seller you will probably want to wait until after the execution of some of these processes before you start to move. You will want to plan around a few of these circumstances so that you are properly prepared.
Most buyers are asking to perform a home inspection. This is at the expense of the buyer. In most circumstances they still have the opportunity to ask you, the seller for necessary repairs, requested repairs, and sometimes it causes a contract to end up falling apart. So, I think it is important not to make any decisions before the completion of the home inspection.
After the home inspection, the buyer's lender will order an apprasial of the home. The appraisal is done by an independent party not related to the contract. Their job is to establish a fair market value for your home. This always gets the sellers. For real estate agents and consumers, fair market is established by how much a buyer is willing to pay and how much the seller is willing to sell for. However, the appraisal's opinion of value is more important than the process that we go thru to get a contract for your home. The appraisal's value is what directs how the loan will proceed forward for the buyer. If the value comes in lower than the agreed upon price, we do have a problem. I have seen deals fall apart because of low appraisal values, and because of this I recommend you wait to pack until after the approval of the appraisal.
The buyer needs to be able to secure home owner's insurance on the home for their loan. If your home has had multiple claims, the buyer may be denied home owners insurance. And if the buyer has a history of being uninsurable it is possible that they may not extend coverage to the buyer. I had a house recently be denied because it had some tube and wire wiring in the house. Most of the home had been updated, but this small amount of wiring almost caused the buyer not to get coverage.
Again, in Central Virginia, the seller promises that there will not be any wood destroying insects on premises and that there will be no damages. Although normally this doesn't prevent closing it is often a blip in the road on the way to closing when termites show up!
And if you have a well--no bacteria can be found! And with a septic it has to be operating as intended. These are very important to a buyer obtaining a loan.
And last but certainly not least, the title (home ownership rights) have to be clean and insurable for the buyer to be able to obtain financing. The title search is done by someone hired by the buyer's attorney. If there is a problem we will be given a chance to fix it. An example of a problem with title would be an old loan that was paid off but not recorded properly. It will have to be recorded for the buyer to proceed. Most title problems work themselves out, just sometimes delays closing.
Let's watch this together and get you where you need to go! My job doesn't end at the acceptance of a contract, actually my job is more important at that time. I want you to get to closing, I will be watching the progress of the above checklist to get you where you want to go!
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