Buying a home? Here’s your closing day checklist!

If you are a home buyer and your closing day is coming up, you are likely feeling a mixture of anticipation, excitement, and nerves. Something that can help you feel more confident about the big day is keeping a closing day checklist handy. This covers the essential tasks you must complete before you take possession of your new home. Here are some of the big items to include!

Get your finances in order

Preparing your finances for closing day involves a few key items. First, you must ensure your down payment is present and ready to go in your bank account. If you received a gifted down payment from a relative, make sure you have proof of the money leaving their account and making its way to yours. Lenders need this to know the money is from a legitimate source and is not a result of laundering. The next item to prepare is ensuring you have the funds necessary to cover your closing costs. You have likely been trying to spend less money during the house hunting process, and have been working on saving up. This will come in handy once your closing costs are due! Legal fees, land transfer taxes, utility adjustments, and moving costs will all come your way, and it’s important to make sure you can support them. It never hurts to take one final peek at your bank account balances, just to be safe! Finally, it’s worth looking over your credit report to make sure your payment history and credit score look accurate. Lenders will examine these items upon final approval, so they must be correct..

Understand your purchasing contract

No one likes going over contracts multiple times. However, since this contract represents the biggest purchase of your life, it’s worth the extra effort. While you don’t need to be a real estate expert, you should understand everything in your contract. This includes the purchasing price, financing requirements, any conditions there may be, and anything else. This knowledge will help you feel more confident and secure, so make it part of your closing day checklist to read up. If anything seems confusing or doesn’t make sense to you, get in touch with your real estate agent! They can answer any questions you may have before closing day, as well as make any necessary changes. It’s essential to bring any issues to their attention before the contract takes full effect. Remember, your realtor is here to help you complete a successful home purchase!

Get in touch with your lawyer

Home buyers often meet with their lawyers in the days leading up to closing day. This meeting is dedicated to signing off on some important documents, providing any last-minute information, and asking any questions you may have about the process. Your lawyer will likely ask you to sign a prepared statement of adjustments, which outlines your closing costs and other expenses you owe. Once you sign this, you can submit a bank draft for the appropriate amount. Make sure the numbers all add up and look correct! Contact your lawyer with lots of time left in the process, in case they are busy or backed up with clients. You need to ensure you fit that meeting in before closing day, and that you have time to make any adjustments if necessary. Any work you can take care of ahead of time will mean less work for you to do on closing day.

Do one last walkthrough

You may think you don’t need to visit the home again before closing day because you already had an inspection done when you put your offer in. In most cases, nothing will have changed in the home’s condition between then and now, but you still need to make sure. If there is any new and major damage, you need to be made aware of it before taking ownership of the property and taking on all the repair costs that come with it. A final walkthrough will give you peace of mind and ensure you know what you will be coming home to in the future. If you discover any damage, you can work with the seller to determine who will cover the repair costs. This is just a good way to protect yourself from being on the hook for huge repairs you didn’t cause.

Completing your closing day checklist is an important part of successfully purchasing a home. The entire purchasing process can be stressful and lengthy, but this is just one last effort you must make to ensure all goes to plan! As long as you have your real estate agent and your mortgage broker by your side, you will be in good shape by the time the big day arrives.

If you have any questions about your mortgage, get in touch with us at Clinton Wilkins Mortgage Team! You can call us at (902) 482-2770 or contact us here.