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Buying a home is one of the BIGGEST purchases and investments you will ever make. It should be your business to communicate with your agent. You need to sit with your agent and let her tell you how it works. If you work a lot then ask your wife to write stuff down. She should be relaying everything to you. If you now have the time to post on a forum and respond to comments then you should have the time to call your agent and ask her to make some time so she can go over all the details. Everyone's situation is unique so you may not get the best answer here.
Yeah, definitely speak to a lawyer. The two key points to note is that closing dates are typically "on or about" so even a July 1 closing date likely gives them until July 30th to close, and even then they may not do such, despite being in violation of the contract terms (since a lot of time and money is already invested by that point, you likely won't back out).
The other thing is, if you did go to close (I believe your lawyer can do a "time is of the essence" type of clause, forcing a closing date), then it'd come down to the contract as to whether you allowed them to stay in the house past the closing date (and pay rent to you) or not.
Taking 3-4 days to respond is rather long, but it could be just them hoping to get more offers, or thinking they need to wait that long to make you want the place more. (They probably knew their counter offer within seconds of hearing yours.)
Have the contract say "on or before" instead of the usual "on or about" (which gives them an extra month). But make sure YOU are ready to move at that time.
Also, make the closing an AFTERNOON closing and in the contract have your lawyer write that as a condition of closing that the house should be completely vacant, including having all their belongings (and trash!) OUT and you will be INSPECTING the house that morning before the closing and if the house is not empty, the closing will not take place and the contract is null and void. That will light a fire under their butts and you won't have to worry about them keeping possession of the house after you buy it, because if they are not out, the sale doesn't take place and they wasted their time and attorney fees. Remember, there is a glut of houses on the market and YOU are in the driver's seat. If they seriously want the house sold and sign that contract, they will be out. They'd be nuts not to be.
We are in the process of finding a lawyer right now, Again I am new to all this, not sure what any norms are.
Had a Family recommended Lawyer, but he is on Vacation until 2nd week of April, so thats no use. RE Agent did recommend one to us, so we are thinking of using him with no other recommendations from friends/family (Outside of our parents, no one else we are close with really owns). We really trust her as shes been great. Regardless of how much we like our agent we will not be using her recommendation for Home Inspector, I agree that is a bad risk, but as far as the Lawyer, not sure how it could go bad, We know what we want to do.
So one thing I'm confused about, is we signed the offer for house, is the offer and the contract different? If so how does the timing work? Do we hand in the offer, they sign and then the contract gets drawn up?
Get your own lawyer.. I cant tell people this enough.... if you want a recommendation.. DM me and I'll give you mine.
When we bought our home in 2003 both of us were still living at home with our parents so there was no rush to get out. We made a full price offer on our home on April 1st.Asking price was $249,000 back then and got an answer 2 days later that it was accepted. We closed in the begining of July and moved in on July 9th. We had a RE lawyer as well and he was great and came to the closing with us. The only problem that we had during the closing is the seller forgot to bring a bank check with him , so we had to stop and break for 20 miniutes while he went to his bank. There was a pad lock on our basement bilco doors and we asked him to have someone come and cut off the lock. Other than that it was pretty smooth, no games.
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