What are you talking about? How can a mere $100 hold up the sale of my home in San Antonio TX?
Well, there's lots of ways, actually, but the one I'm talking about is the Option Period. The option period can be somewhat confusing to both buyer and seller if it is not explained thoroughly. Even when it is explained thoroughly I will often get asked by either party, "what's this for again?".
The option period is defined as a specific time frame that the buyer pays for that allows the buyer the unrestricted right to pull from the contract for ANY reason and receive their earnest money back. Here in The Greater San Antonio TX area the amount paid to the seller many times, is approximately $10.00 a day for 10 days.
Yup...a whopping $100 bucks, which to many isn't a whole lot of money to effectively have a seller pull their home off of the market for 10 days, buttt...it's generally what's accepted.
During the option period, the buyer most likely will get an inspection done and negotiate repairs during this time period and decide if they will move forward with the sale.
Now, this post isn't intended as a class on what the option period is. It is; however, a warning on how this little amount can hold up a sale after the option period is done with and it's usually caused by the seller....
What?!!
Yes, the seller.
You see, typically the contract will say this option fee will be refunded back to the buyer at CLOSING and funding of the sale IF, of course the buyer doesn't exercise their option and pull from the contract. If they do that during the time period, the seller gets to keep the whole thing and put their home back on the market.
Because of this, the seller many times will think that such a little amount has no meaning and either forget to cash the check or just not feel it necessary.
Unfortunately, if you get close the the closing date, the lender is going to be looking for this little, tiny check to be cleared from the bank and they do this closer to the closing date than not.
If there's no way to prove that the check has cleared, then the file cannot be cleared and the lender will not move forward until this happens; thereby delaying closing unnecessarily.
Then no one is happy.
So sellers, CASH that option check right when you get it (which has to be given to you by day 3 of the executed date of the contract to be considered valid)! Go ON!! LIVE it UP on that mula and go to dinner or buy that expensive lamp you wanted, or whatever, but CASH IT!
This way, this little $100 won't hold up the sale of your home!!
This has been a public service announcement from Brenda Mullen, your Greater San Antonio TX area Realtor®. Standard disclaimer that the option period is not ALWAYS $10 a day for 10 days. This is always negotiated between buyer and seller on how much and how many days.
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