Closing

YAY!

You’ve made it to closing! All of your contingencies have been satisfied to your liking. You have been given the clear to close on your Ann Arbor home by your lender, and now a date and time have been set for your closing to take place.

Closing is that event where you and the seller exchange money for keys, it’s as simple as that, yet has a few steps involved.

Prior to getting to the closing date, your lender will have gone through the closing disclosure with you, and shown where each penny of the transaction is going. If you are purchasing with cash, skip on down a bit.

This closing disclosure will be within a few percentage points of the estimate your lender gave, when you formally applied for your mortgage after getting an agreed upon offer. If there are discrepancies on the closing disclosure, or you have questions, be sure to talk through them with your lender. Unless you specifically share this disclosure with your real estate agent, they will only receive a passing glance of it at the closing table. Sometimes, there are items on this disclosure that your agent will be able to address, but for the most part, all of the items outlined in the disclosure will have been a part of the lenders docs and the purchase agreement.

At closing, be sure to bring a valid ID, typically your driver’s license, your certified check in the amount the lender has specified, a spot of patience, and a warmed up signing hand. Prior to closing, you will have done your final walk through of your soon-to-be new Ann Arbor home. If anything came up as a result of that walkthrough, your agent and the other agent will have been working through that issue, so you may need to bring additional documentation as a result.

In conjunction with the closing, you will need to be in touch with the gas and electric utility companies to have the utilities placed in your name. If you are taking possession of the home at close, then you want your name on the utilities as of the day of closing. If you are giving the seller possession after closing, you will want to schedule utilities to be in your name as of the day they vacate the property. Failure to put your name in place at each utility company will trigger a reconnection fee. The fee is not a lot, but there is also no reason to be charged it, if everyone is on the same page.