Selling a Home—Step 6: Plan for Closing

Home / Selling a Home—Step 6: Plan for Closing

"Closing" refers to the meeting where ownership of the property is legally transferred to the buyer. Your real estate agent will be present during the closing to help explain the process and forms to you and make sure everything goes as planned. By being present during the closing, he or she can mediate any last minute issues that may arise.

As the seller, you will need to be prepared to give over any necessary documentation regarding the property and, depending on the arrangements made during negotiations; you may be required to have completed something specific in order to close. Be sure to read all the documents and ask any questions you may have. It is important that you understand every document you are signing.

Some sales go smoothly and some require a lot of work to get to the closing table. Until you get into it, you won't know which one you have on your hands. Either way, your agent will be there to advise you every step of the way.


POST CLOSE ACTIVITY
Congratulations on the successful sale of your home!

Hopefully, everything went smoothly and you will be vacating your house in the time frame that you had anticipated. Your real estate agent will help you create a checklist of all the things you will need to do to turn the property over to the new owners. You will need to make sure that all of the local services (i.e. electricity, gas, lawn care, cable, etc.) have been cancelled or, if the new owner is going to retain some of the services, the name for the account should be changed. The property and anything assigned to the buyer according to the contract should be prepared appropriately for the new owners. This will make the transition as smooth and effortless as possible.