Purchased offer accepted does not the mean of you have the ownership of the property. During thirty days or so between from the purchase offer accepted and to the closing of escrow process, there are so many hurdles you may need to overcome. If you made any mistakes on them, the buying process may fall through and you need to start it from the beginning.
- Extensive damage found in the termite inspection: The lender will usually have a pest or termite inspection done on house to confirming no serious damage to wood by carpenter ants and termites. The termite inspection may not require for some lenders, but it is good for yours to have. In case, the pest inspection found some expensive damages and the seller is not taking responsible for it, you can walk away from that choice when your purchase agreement has contingencies properly.
- Major defects found in home inspection: If house inspection found expensive damages, you can back out from the transaction without any penalty. However, an inspection contingency should written in purchase offer for do not pay the penalty. To avoid penalty in these cases most of the purchase offers have this.
- Appraisal is not enough: To protect the bank’s interest in house, it will have house appraised. The house should at least worth the amount that you will be paying for it. If the appraisal is too low, either the seller has to reduce the selling price or you have to pay for the gap.
- The title: During the process of escrow, you will hire a title company for the purpose of title insurance and for the title search. The title search helps you make sure that there are no one else has legal claim to property, and if there is any problem with the title, the title insurance will protect you. If there is any claim or lien against the property, it has to be resolved before preceding the transaction.
- Withdraw from commitment: Because of any reason, either you or the seller is withdrawn from commitment; the person who withdraws should need to pay to other person. For example you back out due to find a better one, you need to pay penalty to the seller because of his or her marketing activity throughout this time is completely off and loss the time. To compensate it you have to pay. As well if the seller back out, he/she has to pay to you.
You can make yourself ready to the final steps of the home buying. The rules and the procedures of the escrow are different from state to state. Check once again the purchasing house at least one day before to make sure all the agreed requirements are met.