Video Transcription
Engaging The Title Company
You’re all back, after reviewing the WB-11, which is the purchase agreement to sell your home in order to move into your senior housing facility. You are almost done selling your home. So what happens to that WB-11 purchase agreement after you sign it? Well, we can either give you a copy right then and there by making two copies to have to be signed, or we can take a picture and send it to you. But most of the time we take the original. We bring it to our title company. We give them the earnest money, which they will put into escrow. They will make a copy of the WB-11 and we will drop it off to you or mail it to you, whichever we agree upon.
Paperwork And Investigations
So now that the WB-11 is in the hands of the title company, it’s up to them to now do all of the paperwork necessary to complete the transaction. And here’s a list of what they’re going to do. They’re going to go to the title company and run a report to see what kind of liens are on the property, who has a legal right or a lien on the property, like a mortgage company, or a mechanics lien, somebody who did work on the property that you didn’t pay. And they’re going to see what it will take to get a clear title for us to purchase the property a hundred percent free and clear. They will go to the city office and get an assessment letter, which will show them what may be owed to the city, such as are there back taxes that are owed? Are there old water and sewer bills owed? Are there other types of fees or violation fees that are owed that need to be cleared before you, the seller, can transfer the title to me, the buyer?
So that will happen. And once they find out who has liens, they’re going to go to those people and find out what the dollar amounts are to clear those liens, such as the most common is a mortgage company. They’ll go to the mortgage company. After, I should say, after they get a letter of authorization from you so that they can talk to your mortgage company. They’ll go to your mortgage company. They will talk to them, ask them for a payoff letter, give them a certain close date, and then they’ll get that, and they will start creating the paperwork necessary to close on the house. They’ll also get all the other paperwork put together from the other lien holders or people that need some sort of documentation to finish out on the transaction. That sort of documentation could be the water bill people determining the cost for the water up until the closing and things of that nature.
Reviewing The Closing Statement Figures
So now in our circumstance, it could be business day seven, and our title company is putting together the paperwork. And depending upon who is working for you on your side, we can present to you the closing statement, and you can see all the dollars involved in the transaction. And if there’s anything that doesn’t make sense to you, we can, the title company or I, can spend time with you to clarify those things. And at that moment, or right around then, is when we’ll confirm the closing date, a time, and we’ll meet at that date and time. The paperwork will be signed. Because this is a cash transaction, and there isn’t any mortgage and things, there’s a lot less paperwork that needs to be signed.
Cutting Checks And Wiring Funds
The paperwork will be signed. We already have wired the funds to the title company the day before, so they have our funds in escrow ready to give to you. So once all the paperwork is signed, they will at that very moment cut all the checks, to the mortgage company, to the water people, to anybody who has liens and to you as the seller of the house. And then you’ll be able to take that money, deposit it into your checking account to write checks to your senior living community, or whatever you need the funds for at that point, you’ll be able to do it. Now, one word of advice. You can also, instead of getting a check, have the funds wired to your bank. That way when it’s wired, the funds are immediately available. Otherwise, because of the size of the check, there’s the possibility that your bank may put a hold on some of the funds for X amount of time. Every bank, every account could be different. So just be aware of that.
Be Aware Of Wire Fraud
And I do want to state something very important. If you’re having the funds wired to you, the title company will ask for wiring instructions, because they want to know where to send it. Do not send wire instructions in an email if it is an unsecured email system. That is the biggest and easiest way for scam artists to fraudulently get your money. Essentially, if the email that you send to the title company, has wiring instructions, and it’s not secured, the scam artists are able to intercept the instructions, wipe out your bank information, put in their bank information, and then finish sending it on to the title company. And when the title company gets it, well, they’re going to think it’s okay, and they’re going to wire your proceeds to this scam artist’s bank. That’s a very big scam.
So how do you prevent that? You either hand deliver the wiring instructions, fax the wiring instructions, you call the title company with the wiring instructions, or you mail it to them, or if you have the technical ability, send it via a secured email. So just as a side note. And now that’s just about it, as far as dealing with that, dealing with the transaction of selling your home.