Contract to closing in Connecticut, week by week

You accepted an offer. Most sellers assume the hard part is over. It is not — it is just quieter, and the things that kill deals happen in the next six weeks.

Here is the sequence, so you know what should be happening and when to worry.

Week 1 — Contract and deposit

The attorneys finalise the contract. In Connecticut this is a real negotiation, not a signature on a form: inspection period, mortgage contingency date, closing date, what happens to the deposit if financing fails.

The buyer's deposit goes into escrow, usually held by one of the attorneys.

What should happen: fully executed contract within a few days.
Warning sign: a week of silence. A buyer who is slow to sign is often a buyer who is still looking.

Week 1–2 — Inspection

Usually scheduled within days of the executed contract. General inspection, often plus radon, sometimes water and septic, sometimes pests, and in older Connecticut houses occasionally a structural or chimney specialist.

Expect two to four hours and expect the buyer to be there. Be elsewhere.

Warning sign: a buyer who orders five specialist inspections on a house with no obvious issues is a buyer looking for leverage.

Week 2–3 — Inspection negotiation

The buyer comes back with a request: repairs, a credit, a price reduction, or some combination.

This is where most deals die. It has its own rules and its own article, but the short version: respond to the structural and safety items, resist the cosmetic ones, and remember that a credit is usually cleaner than doing the work yourself.

Warning sign: a request that is substantially larger than the inspection findings justify. That is often a buyer with second thoughts looking for an exit.

Week 2–4 — Appraisal

The lender orders it once the inspection is resolved. The appraiser walks the house and produces a value for the lender's purposes.

If it comes in at or above contract price, nobody mentions it again. If it comes in low, you have a problem with a defined set of solutions.

Warning sign: more than two weeks with no appraisal ordered. Usually means the buyer's loan application is not as far along as you were told.

Week 3–5 — Title and the mortgage commitment

Your attorney orders the payoff. The buyer's attorney runs title. Any defect — an old unreleased mortgage, a lien, a boundary question, a gap from a past estate — surfaces here, and this is the argument for having had an attorney involved from day one.

Meanwhile the buyer's lender works toward a written mortgage commitment. The contract has a date by which it must be delivered.

This is the date to have in your calendar. Until the commitment is issued, the buyer can usually walk and take the deposit.

Warning sign: a request to extend the mortgage contingency. Sometimes routine. Sometimes the first visible symptom of a loan in trouble.

Week 5–6 — Clear to close and the walkthrough

The lender issues the clear to close. Figures get finalised. The buyer does a final walkthrough, usually the day before or the morning of.

What they are checking: that the house is in the condition it was in at contract, that agreed repairs were made, and that everything that was supposed to stay is still there.

Warning sign: anything you removed that the contract said stays. Appliances and light fixtures cause more walkthrough problems than everything else combined.

Closing day

In Connecticut this happens at an attorney's office. Funds transfer, documents sign, the deed records.

Bring photo ID and the keys — all of them, plus garage remotes and any codes.

What you can do to make it go fast

Answer your attorney the same day. Make agreed repairs early and keep the receipts. Do not remove anything that was in the house when the buyer saw it, unless the contract says you can. Keep utilities on through closing — the walkthrough and sometimes the appraisal need them.

And stay reachable. A seller who answers in an hour closes faster than one who answers in two days. Every time.

Zack DeCaro is a licensed real estate broker in Connecticut and Massachusetts with Property Works New England in Rocky Hill. This article is general information and not legal advice; timelines vary by contract.