Back in the day —we’re talking the early 2000s —the time between an offer to purchase a home and the actual date of settlement was pretty short. In fact, the “quick settlement” was part of the inducement to the seller in addition to a huge price and no contingencies for home inspections, appraisals or financing. Yeah. For home owners, those were some heady days.

It didn’t seem to matter what condition the house was in at settlement, either. The seller would clear out as much or as little as they wanted and the buyer would go ahead and clean out the rest of the house and move in. Yes. There was still the pre-settlement walk through. But that was more out of a sense of tradition and to see exactly what the place was going to look like 2 minutes after the ink was dry on the settlement papers.

What Are the Buyer’s Rights?

Believe it or not, there is actual contractual language that allows the buyer to walk through the house prior to settlement as to have some expectation that it’ll be clean and habitable. The Seller, it seems, has some responsibilities to convey the property to the home buyer in good condition. Not pristine. In decent shape.

Paragraph 21 of the Maryland Association of Realtors standard contract states (in part):

At settlement, Seller shall deliver possession of the Property and shall deliver the Property vacant, clear of trash and debris, broom clean and in substantially the same condition as existed on the Date of Contract Acceptance.

Of course, the catch is that the buyer gets one shot at this.

The buyer cannot come back to the house on multiple occasions to :

• check on repairs
• measure for window treatments or carpet
• bring in contractors to get estimates for possible renovations
• show off the place to the in-laws or other friends and family members

According to the Contract of Sale (Paragraph 21):

Buyer reserves the right to inspect the Property within five (5) days prior to settlement.

The Seller’s Rights

This allows the seller to do what they need to do in order to make any repairs and pack and move and clean.  It’s important to remember that the house belongs to the seller until the day of settlement. Allowing access to the house, on demand, is disconcerting, to say the least.

This actually came up with a recent client of mine. We had a settlement date set in the Contract but the buyers were able to settle about 2 weeks earlier and wanted to get moved in before the holidays.  The seller was OK with that but a little stressed since it would mean packing and making the inspection repairs and moving on an accelerated timetable.

Lo and behold, the buyer wanted to do the pre-settlement walk through the weekend before the actual day of settlement.  Well, they were within the 5 day period stated in the Contract so we arranged for the walk through. The only issue was that the seller was still in the process of packing and moving.  Most of the big stuff was gone but there were clothes and kitchen stuff and other things that would clearly be gone by the day of settlement.

The buyer wanted to do a second walk through on the day of settlement.  You know. Just to be sure the place was cleaned up. It sounded reasonable but the seller balked. He felt he had been more than accommodating to the home buyer and he wanted t be left alone to finish packing and moving.

We got everything worked out and settlement happened as planned and everyone went away smiling and happy.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

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