Do keys have to be handed over on closing day?

windmilllane

This is all new to me so apologies if it’s a daft question. Buyers want to close this Friday but tenants aren’t moving out until Friday morning. They are giving us the keys at 10am.

We have a removal van arranged for all our bits and lots of help lined up so house will be cleared out in a few hours. My question is do the keys need to handed over at same time as signing final documents? Thanks

Samuel T. Cogley

You won't be able to close until there is vacant possession although there are ways around that. It's not entirely clear who you are in this scenario.

Gumbo

windmilllane wrote: »

This is all new to me so apologies if it’s a daft question. Buyers want to close this Friday but tenants aren’t moving out until Friday morning. They are giving us the keys at 10am.

We have a removal van arranged for all our bits and lots of help lined up so house will be cleared out in a few hours. My question is do the keys need to handed over at same time as signing final documents? Thanks

If all this is happening on Friday then closing will be Monday.

If you want to close on the Friday, then you have to have everything you have mentioned in the first post done by midnight on Thursday.

Now if the buyers really want it on the Friday (and most do) then you can arrange it for the afternoon subject to all parties been ok with that.

windmilllane

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

You won't be able to close until there is vacant possession although there are ways around that. It's not entirely clear who you are in this scenario.

We are selling the property

windmilllane

kceire wrote: »

If all this is happening on Friday then closing will be Monday.

If you want to close on the Friday, then you have to have everything you have mentioned in the first post done by midnight on Thursday.

Now if the buyers really want it on the Friday (and most do) then you can arrange it for the afternoon subject to all parties been ok with that.

Might just ring solicitors

ted1

Offer to put the tenants up in a hotel on Thursday night. And get them to move out then. Once it’s closed it’s the buyers they van open the door with a chain saw if they want to

mvl

on our closing date, funds have been made available from the bank morning time, and we got the key from the agent late in the afternoon.

assuming the solicitors have been aware about the tenant situation, and i'd expect this was noted in the papers that have been exchanged as a pre-condition for closing - with details of what happens if the tenants don't move out in time/or leave the house in certain state.

how did this go eventually ? timing seems stretched to me.

btw, the house we got the key for was emptied, and have to say not as clean as I was hoping for. but as new owners we had to deal with it.

astrofool

Let your solicitor guide you, important thing will be getting the bank to release the funds to the solicitor who will hold it for the transactions to go through at the set time.

This coming from someone who sold at 12pm and bought and moved into new house at 1pm, including moving all items out of the old house in the morning, and into the new house in the afternoon. New owner was into the old house, vacant, on the same afternoon.