The Contract Form for a Condo Resale at The Huntingdon

Seven days from receipt. Under the Residential Condominium Contract (Resale), if you have not received the declaration, bylaws and rules, the seller delivers them at the seller's expense. Delivery is due within the number of days written into the contract after the Effective Date. You may then terminate within 7 days after you receive them. The resale certificate runs the same way, with a right to terminate within 7 days after you receive it.

Both clocks count from your receipt, so the delivery date is the date to record. The certificate must have been prepared, at the seller's expense, no more than three months before it is delivered to you. At The Huntingdon the certificate is the document that states what a specific home currently owes the association. The association has until the 10th day after a selling owner's written request to furnish it, so ask when the seller sent that request. Keep a copy of each document with the date it arrived.

The Effective Date moves. Under the condominium contract, the documents may show that the association or one of its members can buy the property under a right of refusal. In that case the Effective Date becomes the day you receive the association's certification. That certification states the seller complied with the right, and that everyone holding it has not exercised or has waived it.

Every deadline counted from the Effective Date moves with it, including the option period and the document windows. The certification may not arrive within the number of days written into the contract after the Effective Date, or the right may be exercised. Either way, the contract terminates and your earnest money is refunded. The resale certificate is where to look first. Its first lettered line records whether the declaration contains a right of first refusal or another restraint on transferring a home. Read that line before you plan a closing date around anything else.

Within three days after the Effective Date. Under the condominium resale contract, the buyer delivers the earnest money and the option fee to the escrow agent in that window. The termination option then runs for the number of days written into the contract after the Effective Date. Notice of termination is due by five in the afternoon, local time where the property is located.

The option period is the window for reading the association's paperwork, so line the two up. At The Huntingdon that means the resale certificate, the declaration, the bylaws and any rules. It also means the recorded instrument that assigns the home's parking spaces. A right of refusal in the declaration can move the Effective Date, and every one of these counts moves with it. Ask your agent to write each deadline down beside the event it counts from.

They are prorated through the Closing Date. The condominium resale contract splits current-year taxes, interest, rents and regular periodic maintenance fees, assessments and dues at that date. The tax proration may reflect any change in exemptions that affects the current year's taxes. If the year's taxes differ from the amount prorated, buyer and seller adjust once the current year's statements are available.

The maintenance fee is the larger monthly line here. It is a rate times floor area, about $1.15 per square foot per month on current listings, so the prorated amount scales with the home. Property tax follows the county's appraised value at the combined rate for the address. The market data's ten-year series puts that combined rate between about two and two and a half percent. Keep your settlement statement until the year's tax statements arrive.

The Third Party Financing Addendum, Form ID 40-11. If you cannot obtain Buyer Approval, you may terminate within the number of days written in after the Effective Date. You give the seller notice of termination and a copy of the lender's written statement of its reasons. If you do not terminate in that window, the contract is no longer subject to Buyer Approval.

A second exit covers the property itself. The lender may decide the property does not meet its underwriting requirements for the loan, such as appraisal, insurability or lender-required repairs. You may then terminate on or before the third day before the Closing Date, with the same two pieces of paper. If you do not terminate, Property Approval is deemed obtained, and the addendum makes time of the essence for that paragraph. In a condominium the lender also reviews the building. Ask your lender about its project review for The Huntingdon before you write an offer.

The contract treats that as a tenancy at sufferance. Its possession paragraph says that a seller's possession after closing, or a buyer's before it, creates that relationship when no written lease authorizes it. A seller's temporary lease on the promulgated form covers a seller who stays no more than ninety days after closing. Put any stay in writing on that lease.

The same paragraph tells both parties to consult an insurance agent before ownership and possession change, because coverage may be limited or end. Without a written lease or the right coverage, both sides may face economic loss. The temporary lease starts on the date the sale closes and funds. Rent is stated per day and paid in full at funding, with no refund if the tenant defaults or leaves early. At The Huntingdon the association insures the common areas and the building shell. The interior is the owner's to insure, so ask your insurer when your policy should start.