What Are Contingencies, and Which Dates Matter After You Accept an Offer?

Your offer is accepted. Congratulations! But it is not sold yet. A contingency is a condition in the contract that gives the buyer a way out if something is not right, and until every one of them is removed, the buyer can still back out for that reason.

Tanja Odzak is a Top East Bay Realtor with eXp Realty, helping buyers and sellers in Oakland, Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Lafayette and across the East Bay. This guide is the seller's side of the story. If you want the buyer's side, I wrote what your 17 days of contingencies protect when you buy.

Three get most of the attention.

• Inspections. The buyer investigates the home and reviews the reports and your disclosures.
• The appraisal. The lender confirms the home is worth the price.
• The loan. The buyer gets final approval from the lender.

These are the ones sellers hear about first, but they are not the whole list.

The contract has several more, and each one is its own way out for the buyer.

• The buyer's insurance.
• The preliminary title report.
• Your seller documents, and any association disclosures if the home is in a community with an association.
• Leased or liened items, such as solar panels or propane tanks.
• Sometimes, the sale of the buyer's own home, when that condition is part of the offer.

Every one of these has its own deadline, written into the contract. That is why I track each one for you, so nothing slips and nothing catches you by surprise.

The standard timeframe is often seventeen days, or whatever the contract says. Some of the deadlines are tied to when documents are delivered, so they do not all start and end on the same day. Buyers can shorten the timeframes, or remove contingencies early, to make an offer stronger.

If a buyer needs more time, they can ask for an extension, and you decide whether to agree. Whatever the dates are, they are in the contract, and I keep them on a calendar for you.

The buyer puts a good faith deposit into escrow after the offer is accepted. Until a buyer formally removes a contingency, they can generally back out for that reason and get their deposit back. After they remove all of them, their deposit is at risk if they walk away.

That is why the moment a buyer removes the last contingency matters so much. It changes the buyer's position from being able to walk away freely to having something real at stake.

The contingency deadlines run inside escrow, not after it. With a loan, escrow is typically about thirty days, give or take, and the inspections, appraisal, and loan approval all happen in that window. That is why the stretch right after you accept is the busy one. I walk through the whole path in how long it takes to sell a house in the East Bay, so you can see where the contingency dates sit.

Stay flexible and stay informed.

• Keep the home ready. The buyer's inspectors, appraiser, and others will need access.
• Respond quickly. A delay on a seller document can push a deadline.
• Expect a conversation after the inspection. Pre-listing inspections make this one smoother, because the buyer has already seen the reports. See why East Bay sellers inspect first.
• Do not celebrate too early. Wait until all the contingencies are removed.

Treating accepted as sold. Until the contingencies are removed, the buyer can still back out for a covered reason.

Losing track of the dates. Each contingency has its own deadline.

Agreeing to an extension without thinking it through. You decide, and it is worth a conversation first.

Surprising the buyer with documents. The earlier the buyer sees them, the fewer problems come up late.

Start before you accept an offer, not after. A free call is a good way to go through how the contingencies, the dates, and the deposit would work for your sale. I guide every seller through each one, so you get to closing without a hitch. See how this fits the full plan on how I sell a home. This is general information, not legal, tax, or lending advice.