What happens between the time you put a deposit on a house & the time of closing?

Question

we are almost finished with the process of getting the house, my husband and i signed the contract & we gave a deposit on Friday 7/25 and on Monday 7/28 we had the inspector check the house everything came out well and so he said that he was going to send the paper work to the realtor so that they could run it by the Bank. when we signed the contract our realtor stated that the closing would be done by 8/15 or sooner! hopefully sooner but anyways, my question that i have been asking people and noone seems to know, what happens now before the closing? oh yea i forgot we are not financing, as the house was a foreclosure and they asked for a really small amount we are paying cash for the house, so we are not waiting on an approval from the bank, so what exactly is going on? what could take so long for the closing? i'm just anxious to move already. does anyone know why the closing takes so long?

Answer 1

Closing on a house is a legal matter and it all needs to be set up through various offices.  When you finally get to the closing meeting you will totally understand why the process takes so long.  There is a TON of paperwork that has to be prepared.  It all has to go through the bank's lawyers, deed search (new deed typed up).  So, in most cases it takes a few weeks to just get all the paperwork straight and typed up.

When we got our house two years ago, we were in the appointment for over an hour with JUST signing all the papers.

Good luck and Congradulations

Answer 2

It's called escrow.  A third party, an escrow company, takes the title from the current owner (the bank), and the money from you, then does the switch.  If there's title insurance, they make sure that it's in place.  There's usually some checking time on that.  Make sure you have title insurance.

Answer 3

They are just trying to coordinate the realtors and attorney's schedules to a time when everyone can get together and sit around for an hour to sign papers. I had to wait like a month for my closing date because they were really backed up at that time. They close the houses in order that they are bought, so if there's other people that signed paperwork before you they will close before you. They might be a little backed up.

Answer 4

they need to order the title which can take a few weeks.