ORLANDO, Fla. – Everyone involved in a real estate transaction can agree that successfully closing the deal is the ultimate goal. And you start to achieve that goal by making sure to double check the contract, line by line, to make sure something isn’t missed … or added by the other side!

An integral part of the contract process is paying attention to each line of the contract – particularly any line that must have a box checked, may have default provisions or can contain additional information. 

Here is the tricky part: Do ALL blanks in the contract have to be filled out? Do ALL boxes need to be checked?

Here comes your favorite answer: It depends. Regardless, it likely serves your customer well for you to check, then double-check, portions of the contract to make sure that your buyer and/or seller are satisfied with what is there. Does the default timeframe for an inspection work for your buyer, for example?

Some sections of the contract don’t have default provisions, i.e., “if left blank, then 15 days.” Is a box that is required to be checked appropriately checked? Was additional information added by a party in a blank that may affect the other party?  For more examples of contract sections that can cause problems, refer to “What if someone fails to completely fill out a contract?” published in 2019.

Recent calls to the Florida Realtors’ Legal Hotline indicate a trend – additional information being added to paragraph 9 of the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar Residential Contract for Sale and Purchase (“FR/Bar”). This paragraph of the FR/Bar contract discusses closing costs of the parties, among other things. One line of that section also lists “Other” and allows a party to add potential costs to a party’s closing costs.

Calls to the Hotline reflect that this section is often overlooked, resulting in an unhappy consumer facing additional closing costs. The main example we’ve heard is a buyer adding a credit for buyer’s closing costs under the seller’s closing costs section.

More than likely, this oversight is due to a quick skimming of the document without taking the cautionary time to review each line. So again, check, then re-check, the lines of each contract that passes through your hands in each transaction that you handle.

While time-consuming, I would like to think that the parties would rather be out of additional minutes of their day rather than out of additional money from their pockets.

Meredith Caruso is Associate General Counsel for Florida Realtors

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