The Seller's Closing Checklist: What to Bring, Cancel, Transfer and Hand Over

Closing is mostly other people's work: the title company clears the title, the buyer's lender funds the loan, the closing agent prepares the statement. What is left for the seller is small, specific and easy to get wrong in the last week when everything else is in boxes. This is that list.

Two to three weeks before

• Request your mortgage payoff letter, and any second mortgage or equity line. Servicers take days and the closing agent cannot finalise the statement without it. Ask that the equity line be closed, not just paid to zero, or it can stay open as a lien.
• Confirm how you will be paid. A wire needs your bank details given to the closing agent in person or by a verified channel, never by replying to an email. Wire fraud in real estate closings is common and the money does not come back.
• Order the HOA estoppel or resale certificate if there is an association; see selling a condo.
• Book the movers for the day before closing, not the day of. Funding can slip by hours, and a buyer who arrives to a house still being emptied is a buyer who delays signing.
• Arrange any repairs you agreed to, and keep the receipts, because the buyer's walkthrough will look for them.

The week before

• Ask for the settlement statement early and read every line. Check the payoff figure, the commission, the prorations and any credits you agreed. Errors on statements are ordinary and a statement read on the day is a statement signed with errors in it.
• Check the prorations. Property taxes are split to the closing date; in states that bill in arrears you owe the buyer for the months you lived there this year, and it can be a large line. HOA dues, and any prepaid rent or deposits if there is a tenant, are split the same way. Utilities are not usually prorated; you pay to your final readings.
• Schedule the utilities to transfer, not to shut off, on the closing date. A house with the power cut has no heat, no sump pump and no alarm, and a lender's walkthrough can fail on it. Ask each provider for a final reading on the closing date.
• Do not cancel the homeowner's insurance yet. Cancel it the day after you have confirmation that the deed has been recorded and the money is in your account, not the day of closing. If funding slips, you want to be insured that night.
• Gather what the buyer gets: every key, garage remotes, gate fobs, mailbox keys, alarm codes, appliance manuals and warranties, paint colours, the names of the contractors who serviced the house, and any permits or certificates you have.

What to bring on the day

If you cannot attend, tell the closing agent early. Documents can be signed ahead of time in front of a notary, or by remote online notary where the state allows it, but the agent has to prepare for it.

Spouses and co-owners

Everyone on the deed signs. In many states a spouse who is not on the deed also has to sign, to release a marital or homestead interest, and the closing agent will not close without it. If a co-owner has died, the estate paperwork has to be done before closing, not at it; see selling a house in probate.

The walkthrough

The buyer usually walks through the house within a day of closing to check it is in the agreed condition and the agreed repairs are done. Leave it broom clean unless the contract says otherwise, leave anything the contract says stays, and take everything else. On an as-is or cash sale, what stays is often everything, and that should be written into the contract so the walkthrough has nothing to argue about.

After signing

• Funding and recording can take hours to a day. You are not done until the deed is recorded and the wire has landed.
• Then cancel the insurance, forward the mail, and tell the county to send tax bills to the new owner.
• Keep the closing statement. You will need it for your tax return, and if the gain matters, for the capital gains calculation.

On a cash sale the list is the same, only shorter: no lender conditions, no appraisal, and a date you chose. What does not change is the wire fraud warning, the insurance timing and the payoff letter. Those three are where sellers lose money at closing, whoever the buyer is.