The hardest parts are over. You have found a home that makes you happy, secured a reasonable deal with the home seller and convinced the bank to give you a mortgage. After a tedious intense process, you are finally on the last lap; The home closing process. This is what realtors term as the ‘settlement’ or ‘escrow’. It is the buildup to the day when all parties meet to make the transaction official.
Changing your marital status
There are no restrictions to changing your marital status but it affects when you will hold the title deed to the property. In the event of circumstances such as divorce, the sellers may have to re-draft documents in order to change names possibly resulting in a lengthy delay. Ultimately, such delays stagnate the closing process.
Additionally, if your marital status was indicating married at the time of applying for the loan, last minute verifications by the loan officer may cause him/her to be hostile towards you if you didn’t inform them of the divorce or separation. This is because lenders know that most families own joint bank accounts and conjointly buy homes.
Don’t change jobs
If you are taking a mortgage, changing jobs may result in being denied the loan. This is largely because lenders want to see consistency and stability. Moreover, changing jobs has a lot of uncertainties especially if you are down-grading to a lower rank than what you held in your previous company. Further, moving to a different field is also not advisable because it may negatively interfere with the closing process.
Switch banks or move money around
This is not the time to move money around from Equity Bank to KCB to Barclays and so on and so forth. Be informed that your lender will be verifying the funds in each account you list therefore, the money should remain in the same institution until it is needed for the purchase. Any attempt to transfer money from one account to the other may lead to the revoking of a successful loan application hence, interfering with the closing process.
Don’t Make any large purchases, it affects the closing process
Your loan application was successful and you will have the money in your bank account in a few days. It may be very tempting to take your ‘crew’ out on a drinking spree. After all, out of the millions you are about to receive, what harm does it cause to spend a few thousands? Don’t do it. Be informed that your lender will confirm your accounts, debts and spending patterns right before the loan closes, so that awesome entertainment could put your loan in jeopardy.
Any major purchases that require you to withdraw funds from your bank account or increases your debt can also result in you not qualifying for the loan. This will delay the closing process. The lender may decide to re-verify funds at the last minute thus, avoid purchases that could impact your loan approval.
To sum it all up, any major changes made during the closing process which Is usually between 21-45 days will be noticed. Keep your family, credit, financial, and employment status the same. In the end, a small hiccup could cost you the mortgage and the house.
Related; To- do list for first time home buyers.