Articles and Advice

After the Offer: What Happens Before Closing

Signing back an accepted offer is satisfying. What comes next is less so. The weeks between that moment and actually handing over the keys involve inspections, appraisals, legal reviews, and a fair amount of waiting on other people. Knowing roughly what's coming and when you'll need to show up keeps things from catching you off guard.

The Buyer's Inspection

While the buyer's conditions are still open, they'll almost certainly bring in a home inspector. The inspector works through the property on their own, checking structural conditions, major systems, visible defects, eavestroughs, the furnace, and plumbing. You don't attend.

What they find may or may not become a negotiation. Buyers sometimes ask for repairs. Sometimes they want a reduction or a closing credit instead. You're not obligated to give them everything they ask for, but the response you give matters more than sellers sometimes expect. A hard line on something small has killed deals that were otherwise fine. Your agent will help you figure out what's worth pushing back on.

The Appraisal

If the buyer is financing, their lender needs to confirm the home is worth what's on the contract. An appraiser visits, pulls recent comparable sales, and puts a number on it. You usually don't hear much about this step unless the number comes back low.

When it does, the buyer will bring it to you. They might ask you to reduce the price to match the appraisal, or they may try to cover the difference themselves. Not all of them can. It's worth knowing this is a possible outcome before you get there.

Title Review

Your lawyer or notary will comb through title records to confirm there's nothing blocking a clean transfer of ownership. That means any existing mortgage, home equity line of credit, or trades work recorded against the property gets discharged out of your proceeds. In Canada, a real estate lawyer or notary handles this throughout the transaction. They're not just there at the end. Title insurance is common and covers the buyer if something unexpected turns up after closing.

Occasionally sellers are surprised to find old liens or judgments they'd forgotten about. Surface anything you're aware of early.

The Waiting Period

Between accepted offer and closing, most sellers spend a lot of time not doing much. That's normal. The bulk of the work is happening on the buyer's side, at the lender's office, or between lawyers. Your main job is to stay reachable.

Your agent, your lawyer, or someone on the buyer's side will need things from you periodically: a signature, a document, access for a repair. If you're slow to respond, the closing date can slip. Depending on how the agreement is written, delays on your end can also give the buyer room to raise concerns about whether conditions were properly met. Leave the property as-is. Fixtures, appliances, anything included in the sale stays put.

The Final Walkthrough

A day or two before closing, the buyer walks through the home. They're not there to inspect again. They're checking that the property is in the same state it was when they agreed to buy it, and that you've followed through on any repairs that were negotiated.

Get those repairs done early, not the day before. In winter, the walkthrough should include the heating system and any areas where freeze-thaw movement could have caused new damage around the foundation or eavestroughs. Problems found at this stage can delay closing or turn into last-minute renegotiations.

Closing Day

Your lawyer or notary handles the paperwork and the money. Title transfers, your mortgage gets discharged, closing costs come off the top, and whatever's left comes to you. The buyer's deposit, which has been sitting in trust since the offer was accepted, is applied against the purchase price.

Timelines from accepted offer to closing typically run somewhere between 30 and 60 days, though that shifts by province and market. The process moves when people respond, cooperate, and keep their commitments.

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