The last step in buying a home is closing. This is when you will complete the transaction and transfer the funds you need to make your down payment and pay your closing costs. As part of the closing process, you will receive quite a few documents. You may be curious what those documents are. While the exact documents may vary depending on the specifics of the purchase, below, you can view a list of documents that typically are included in closing.
- Loan application
- Title insurance policy
- Bill of sale
- Deed
- Note
- Mortgage
- Proof of homeowners’ insurance
- Closing disclosure
- Affidavit of title
- Transfer tax declaration
- Initial escrow statement
- Certificate of occupancy
- Site plan
What Should You Do with the Documents You Receive?
Some of the documents that you receive at closing will require your signature and return. Others are given to you solely for your reference, and so that you have the legal documents you might need in the future.
Judging from some of the questions we see homeowners asking years down the road, it seems that it is all too common to forget about closing documents. When people end up needing them, they may forget they even have copies of some of them.
What can you do about that? The answer is to make sure you are storing them in a sensible, organized way. Here are our recommendations:
- Carefully look over all the documents you are given right away, including the ones that do not require any signatures or action from you. Do not tell yourself you will get around to this “later,” only to never do it. Doing this step ensures that you know what documents you have. A lot of homeowners don’t seem to realize that they might have a copy of their site plan, for example.
- Take photos of the documents and upload them to an external hard drive to digitize them.
- Create an inventory of the documents. This could just be a simple list of everything in a spreadsheet. You can reference this if you do not want to go digging through the actual documents just to see if you have something.
- Store all of the physical documents together somewhere they will stay tidy and safe. Keep them all in a folder together. After closing, the home is yours, so this process may not be at the top of your mind. But years from now, if you need to reference one of the documents, you will be glad that you did it.
We Can Help You Close Fast
When you are buying a home in Virginia, you want to be able to close quickly. At First Residential Mortgage, our extensive experience processing mortgage applications means that we can rapidly walk you through every step to get you into your dream home. To start the mortgage application process or to ask any questions you may have, please give us a call at (540) 838-5868.
