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Tales from the Closing Table

By Peter Olson, Esq.

We've all had our slow closings before for many reasons....slow wiring of funds, Seller/Lender slow in submitting figures to the title company or submitting wrong figures which then take time to be corrected, lender's loan processor goes to lunch during the closing and isn't available to give approval to cut checks, Buyer did a walk-thru the morning of the closing and there was water coming through the ceiling from the unit above, ect., ect.

I think the good real estate attorney, lender and agent simply have prepared clients for these potential events and then it's no big deal. Go grab lunch and perhaps the deal will have funded in a couple hours; don't have your stuff on a moving truck!

I ran into a new one yesterday and perhaps the dumbest reason yet for a 5+ hour closing. The Listing Real Estate broker was slow in WALKING over the earnest money overage that had to be included in my client's escrow. Seriously! 11am closing was a little slow for various reasons but by about 1:30 pm everything was ironed out and we call this listing broker and they say the money is in route (title company and broker are within 3/4 blocks of one another). Apparently they sent it over with some commercial messenger service who likely had many other deliveries. Well, at 5:20pm I got a call from our closer saying she'd gotten the earnest money check and the deal was closed.

And we were waiting on a check for $107. After the buyer's agent and listing agent's split the commission the listing agent's commission was just less than the $1,000 commission. So instead of the "normal" situation where the listing agent keeps the interest money towards its commission here they had to bring part of it back.

Our 6 hours wasn't worth that $107...nice work!

Full post as published by Closing Real Estate in Chicago on July 12, 2008 (boomark / email).