What Time Should Your Sellers Come to Closing?

by | Feb 22, 2019 | Legal Tips

As the old adage goes, time is money. As such, many sellers these days don’t want to sit in a closing and wait while the buyers sign a large stack of closing documents. Therefore, some sellers have begun coming to closing 30 minutes or so after the scheduled closing time. By doing so the sellers believe that they will save 30 minutes of watching the closing attorney go over loan documents that only relate to the buyers. But is this really saving the sellers any time?

In most cases, no. In order to fund most loan closings, lenders require the closing attorney to email several signed closing documents for review prior to providing a funding number. The funding number authorizes the closing attorney to complete the closing and disburse the funds. Lawyers may not disburse funds prior to receiving the funding number and they most certainly may not hand out checks and ask people to hold them until notified that the funding number has been received.

In order to speed up the process, most closing attorneys will have the funding documents signed first so they can be sent to the lender while the closing attorney completes the remaining documents. One document the lenders almost always requests to see for funding is the Settlement Statement signed by both the buyers and sellers. If the sellers wait until 30 minutes after the scheduled start time to attend the closing, the funding documents will not be sent to the lender until near the end of the closing. Since many lenders take as long as 30 to 45 minutes (with some taking over an hour) to provide the funding number, coming late to closing will actually cause all parties to have to wait longer than had the sellers just attended closing as scheduled. Thus, it’s a good idea to advise your sellers to come to closing on time to avoid delays in getting the funding number.

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