I just had two closings, neither of which closed on time. 
On these particular closings, I followed up regularly with the agents and quickly got the feeling they simply placed the transactions on autopilot and assumed all would go as planned. Understand that almost all my sellers choose to include a "time is of the essence" provision in their contract in an attempt to keep the buyers / buyer's agent on track. I've never really believed that floating closing dates are a good way to do business....just my personal preference I suppose.
But I'm always amazed when we get to the day of closing, and I realize by now that we won't make our closing date/time, and the agent says, "yeah, looks like there will be a delay for a day or two" in a nonchalant manner as if the time frames in the contract have no meaning. I wonder if they would be as casual if I said, "yeah, we decided we need two grand more for the house?" Of course the usual suspects get blamed, the title company, the lender, the neighbor down the street, etc. But I'm more than certain that some of these delays could have been avoided if the agent had just followied up every few days with the lender, title company or neighbor down the street? It's always worked for me and I sure don't want to place my client in breach of a contract because I overlooked a time frame, especially a closing date.
I know I'm seeing more of this than I wish to and thought I'd see if this is becoming an issue in your area and how your clients are accepting it.
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