What happens when you close on a house in Charlottesville?
Sellers
get all repairs and such done at least 5 days prior to closing. Plan to vacate the house the day before closing.
Buyers will do a final walkthrough the afternoon/evening or the morning of closing to ensure the house is ready for conveying.
you can usually sign your documents a couple days prior to closing as your stuff is less time sensitive than the buyers’. Your closing will usually take less than 30 minutes — the courthouse description comes at the end of this video
Buyers
We’ll do your walkthrough the day before, or day of closing, then go to the attorney’s office. You’ll need a photo id. Closing will take about an hour. Pay attention to your social security number, address, loan terms, and everything else is either state, federal or lender standard … either sign and buy, or don’t sign and don’t buy (the latter really isn’t an option at this point.
Since you’ve already wired your money to your attorney’s office, hopefully your lender’s money has been wired to your attorney as well. Then … your attorney will go to the seller’s attorney’s office (buyers and sellers have different attorneys), will trade money for deed, then will go to the courthouse to record. Once the transaction is recorded, then you own the house.
We’ll talk about keys.
Old video code below … in case I can ever figure out how to get it back.
Interested in Learning More?
Jim Duncan has been helping buyers and sellers in Charlottesville’s neighborhoods for 25 years. Get local insight born of experience.
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