Moving Forward With Sale

My agent confirmed escrow was opened yesterday. As soon as she gets a copy of the earnest money payment, she'll fax it to me.

The next step is providing all the paperwork the contract states I will provide to the buyer: the lead based paint disclosure, the SPDS (seller property disclosure statement), and a list of any insurance claims against the property.

I faxed over the lead based paint disclosure this morning.

I have requested and received a CLUE report from my insurance agent on the property. A CLUE report is a report provided by the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange and it lists all the insurance claims against a property in the last seven years. I knew from when I purchased this property that there was a claim filed for roof repair due to hail damage a couple years ago. This needs to be disclosed to the new buyer. This was also the only claim that showed up on the report.

The SPDS is 6 pages of questions about the condition and history of the property. For this property, there are only two issues that have to be disclosed. The first is the roof repair. I'm attaching a copy of the CLUE report to this document, as well as a letter from the previous owner's insurance stating what the repair was for and when it was fixed. (I asked for this when I purchased the house. I don't need to provide it, since the CLUE report shows the same thing, but I'm trying to "kill them with kindness" here.) The other thing I need to disclose is the aluminum wiring issue. Normally, this might give a buyer pause, but in this case, it allows me to show I have fully repaired the problem. I will be attaching the invoice for the copper pigtailing work that I had done by a licensed electrician. And, of course, I am writing the magic phrase on the SPDS as well.

The next step is to wait for the buyer to have an inspection performed and to get their list of items they want corrected. As with everything in real estate, the items on the list are negotiable. I'm hopeful things will go smoothly. The buyer is a real estate agent and I'm sure she understands she is buying a 30+ year old house, so it won't be in immaculate condition.

Oh, the one other thing is the yard clean up. I submitted a request for a quote via a website yesterday, but never heard anything back, so I had to make a phone call today. The company will be out at the house tomorrow at 10 AM to make an estimate and then the work can be performed usually within a week after that.