I have been teaching the sales persons course at the Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley in Springfield Massachusetts and I have to update my materials so I thought, what better way then to start at the heart of the course and update the analysis of the purchase and sale agreement.  These next 26 passages are my view on the contract and should be helpful to the new Realtor or First time Home buyer looking at all of this "Greek" and wondering what it all means. . .

For purposes of these posts (and my materials!)  I am reviewing the 2005 version of the Realtor contract that is recommended by the RAPV covering Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin County - that is most of Western Massachusetts!

PURCHASE AND SALE AGREEMENT

1. PARTIES, This Agreement is made this day of , 2008 between ____________________ and _____________________of __________________________hereinafter called the SELLER and_________________and ____________________ of __________________________, hereinafter called the BUYER. 

The parties section of the contract seems straight forward enough, but one very common blunder is made right here.  Many attorneys and Realtors do not bother to review the names part of the purchase and sale agreements with their clients and mistakes can be made!  It is common that a secretary working for the listing agent (seller's agent) is the one who prepares the purchase and sale agreement.  Often, they have only received the names of the buyers on the offer form. The names are frequently only signatures and are thus, very hard to read.  Also many people do not sign their names with their middle initials or "Jr.", etc. .  so, the name is often misspelled or incomplete on the purchase and sale agreement. 

To further aggravate matters, the only document that the Seller's attorney has with the Buyers' names on it is the purchase and sale agreement.  The Seller's attorney drafts the deed.  When everyone is gathered round the closing table and the deed is passed to your Buyer for inspection and their name is spelled wrong, you will feel badly.  The Seller's attorney will immediately throw you under the bus. "That's how it was spelled on the contract!" The Buyer's attorney or lender's attorney will whip out a black pen and mark up the most important document in the entire transaction.  This moment will burn into the Buyer's mind as an example of the lack of care that everyone took in this transaction and make your Buyers feel very nervous that there are other mistakes in the 100 pages that they are signing.. .  OK, that was a little exagerated, but if you have been in real estate for a while, you know that it happens and it is never pretty. . .

Another item that can cause delay has to do with estates.  Generally, it is a much faster process to have a will allowed and an executor  / executrix appointed than to have an administration allowed and a license to sell obtained.  Sometimes Realtors are dealing with the family members of a decedent and do not know the status of the probate of the decedent's estate.  hey could be contracting with the wrong person!  It is very important to get the person who has authority to sell the estate property to sign the contract!

And that was all just paragraph 1!

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