When is the Purchase Offer Accepted for a Sacramento Home?

You will find veteran real estate agents in Sacramento who do not know the answer to when do sellers and buyers have a purchase offer accepted? What is the date of offer acceptance? Moreover, what date is the date of the purchase contract? Even Bank of America does not know the answer to this question, but at least it has picked a method by which to determine the date, even if it is incorrect, according to California law.

I had a conversation with a short sale negotiator at Bank of America yesterday about its SSPCA, which is a form used in a short sale. It specifies and references the date of the California purchase contract. This particular negotiator said that bank policy is to pick the date the real estate agent typed the offer, the date that appears in the upper right hand corner of every page of the C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement. This date may or may not be the date on which the buyer even signed the offer. It is definitely not the date of the purchase contract, even if it is the date the buyer signed the offer.

But I can see Bank of America’s point of view. It needs some sort of conformity in its short sale processes, thank goodness, and its lawyers probably decided that since the laws in all states are different, and their lazy ass wants to use only one form nationwide, then the lawyers would just make up their own rules. Nobody cares about short sales much anymore.

When it comes to a home buyer in Sacramento, though, the date of the purchase contract is extremely important because it establishes the contingency period date. Purchase contracts contain contingencies for all sorts of things such as home inspections, appraisal and loan approval. Those time periods, typically 17 days by contract default, start the day after the purchase contract is ratified, fully accepted.

The date the contract is fully accepted, the date of contract acceptance, is the date it is delivered to the party named on page 8 in the first paragraph (subject to counter offers, if any). If it is the buyer who is named, then it is the date that the buyer receives the fully executed contract. If the name is that of the buyer’s real estate agent, then it is the date the buyer’s real estate agent receives the fully executed contract. It is “delivery” and receipt of that delivery that starts the clock ticking.

For example, if a purchase contract is signed by the buyer on October 16th, accepted by the seller on October 19th, but not delivered to and acknowledged by the buyer’s agent until October 21st, then it is October 21st that is the date of delivery and the official date of the purchase contract.