The Closing

You don’t want to be going to the closing twenty minutes late, sleep deprived from your “Hooray-I-Just-Bought-A-House” party the night before. This is serious business, and you need to treat it as such.  Don’t expect to zoom in, sign a few papers, and then zoom back out.  You are going to sign document upon document upon document until it seems as though you have signed your name so many times that the pen should just automatically sign for you.  You need to remain alert and concentrate on what you’re doing.  After all, these documents are all legally binding once they have your signature on them.  This is not the time to mess around.          

Read everything. 

It may seem like a huge burden to read everything which is presented to you at the closing.  You may feel as though you are wasting everyone’s time, and you also may feel a little like the people in the room know you don’t know what half the real estate and lending terminology is on the paperwork.  This isn’t the time to care what everyone in the room thinks.  You need to make sure that you are not signing something that is contrary to what has already been agreed upon, and it is up to you to spot any mistakes that may show up.  You need to do this because if you sign something without reading it and then later claim you were hoodwinked by the sellers you will have no legal ground to stand on if your only defense is that you didn’t take the time to read the document before signing. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

The paperwork involved with a mortgage closing can be downright confusing.   All the documents start to look the same and you may wonder why you are signing something that looked just like the last three papers you signed.  Although you can rest assured that each and every document has a specific legal purpose you should also know that you aren’t the first person to be confused by mortgage documents.  For this reason, the closing agent and realtor are used to answering all sorts of questions about the pile of paperwork you will be expected to review and sign.  With mortgage documents the only silly question is the one that was never asked.