Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. In the past, we’ve talked about the timeline of a typical land sale in which you as landowner and seller first sign the purchase agreement, it is sent off to title, and finally we close on it, and you get your cash as fast as two, three, or four weeks depending on how long the title company takes. Today, I’m going to go through and walk you through the timeline of a much more complicated land sale, one in which we are working with right now. I’m walking you through this ongoing transaction process so that you have a chance to see the other side of the “quick transaction.”
For this particular land seller, he had received a letter from us earlier this summer, close to six and a half months ago, and his letter included an offer to purchase his land for cash through a Title Company. He finally got back with us this fall and said he was finally ready to sell his family land. We looked at the property and discovered there were a lot of issues with his property. The biggest concern for us was whether he had what can be called legal access to the property or deeded access for ingress and egress to his property across others’ properties. On top of this, there were heirship issues since this is a property that was passed down for multiple generations and there were several heirs. To add to even these complications, there was eminent domain at one point in which the State of Texas came in and purchased part of his property for an Interstate Highway to go through it.
As you can see, there are a lot of issues that we worked through in first doing the discovery. However, with that said, within a week we were able to get him a purchase agreement, which he and his sister signed, and we sent that to the Title Company with a closing date set for the end of this month of December. We put a closing date of about five weeks on the contract because of the complications of his property. The Title Commitment came back pretty quick from Title but since there was no survey on file, a whole new survey needs to be done in order to address some of the issues I mentioned previously. Due to holidays and backlog, the local surveyors can’t get to the project until mid January.
Basically, the late December closing date had to be extended until mid to late January, which allows the surveyor can get out there and survey the property, write a new legal description to provide to the title company, and then title’s going to have to close. Please keep in mind that this transaction is still in process and the goal is still to close mid-January, but we’ve put down a date on the extension amendment to close on or before the end of January as a “just in case” measure.
To recap, from the time the land seller received the letter and decided to call us back, it took him several months to actually decide to move forward and sell his property, and that’s totally fine. That should absolutely be his right to make a decision on what he wants to do and when he wishes to sell. In a week we were able to get him a purchase agreement after going through some of those issues. However, instead of closing in about five to six weeks, it’s going to look like more like a two month to two and a half month close timeframe for his complicated property. Again, the property is not closed yet and we may have to update this post if anything changes. We’re still waiting on the surveyor to get out there and then we will have to wait on the title company but with where we’re at right now, it looks like we will be at two and a half months to close on the property.
As a result of this transaction, the land seller and his sister are going to get a game-changing amount of money. They’re really excited about this. They’re excited that they don’t have to pay property taxes again on the property that they’re not using, and so it’s kind of a win-win situation for them. In any case, I wanted to walk you through a more complicated property sale in case that might be the case with you and your property. I hope it has helped you realize that complicated properties might slow down the process but slow might be better than not being able to close at all so we do everything we can to make it work out for you. If you have any specific questions about what the timeline might look like for your particular property that you’re interested in selling, feel free to reach out to us. We’re happy to look at your property and answer any questions that you might have. Thanks again for listening.