The Purchase Contract: What a Seller Should Read Before Signing

What the purchase contract does

A purchase contract is the document that turns an offer into an obligation. It sets the price, the closing date, who pays which costs, what the buyer may investigate and for how long, what happens to the deposit, and what each side may do if it goes wrong.

Sellers read the price and sign. Then, weeks later, something happens that the contract had already decided, and it is too late to decide it differently. Everything below is a clause worth reading before signature. None of it is legal advice and you are entitled to take the document to a lawyer, which on the largest asset most people own is an hour well spent.

If an agent is involved, many Oklahoma transactions use standard forms, and your agent or your attorney can tell you which provisions in the version you have been handed correspond to what follows.

Who is actually buying

• The name on the contract. An individual, a company, or an individual followed by "and or assigns". Those three words change the nature of the transaction
• Whether it is assignable, and whether that needs your consent. If you want the party you met to be the party who closes, this is the clause that delivers it. Our article on contract assignment and what it means for sellers covers the practice in detail
• Whether the entity exists. You can check a company for yourself, and our page on whether cash home buyers are legitimate sets out how
• Whether the buyer can pay. A pre-qualification, a pre-approval and a commitment are three different things. For a cash buyer, read the proof of funds properly: our article on proof of funds explains what the common substitutes actually prove

What can change the price

This is the single most important thing in the document and it is rarely in one place.

• The inspection or due diligence provision. How long the buyer has, what they may do at the end of it, and whether they can simply walk away or reopen the price. A long period with an unlimited right to renegotiate is an option on your house rather than a purchase of it. Our article on the inspection contingency covers it
• The appraisal provision, where a financed buyer is involved. If the house appraises below the agreed price, who covers the gap
• Lender required repairs, which are not the same as inspection repairs and are not negotiable once called for. Our article on FHA appraisal requirements covers the most common version
• Any clause letting the buyer adjust after a walkthrough. Ask directly: can the price change after you have seen it, yes or no, and get the answer written in
• Repair credits and concessions, which reduce your net just as surely as a price reduction does

Earnest money and who holds it

• How much, because a buyer with very little at risk can abandon the deal cheaply. That is a different proposition from one who cannot
• Who holds it, which should be a neutral third party such as the title company rather than the buyer or their agent
• When it is actually deposited. Promised and deposited are not the same, and a contract can be signed with money that never arrives
• Whether it becomes non refundable at any point, which is the clause that gives a seller real protection once a due diligence period ends
• What happens to it if the deal dies, and whose signature is needed to release it. In most cases it does not move without instructions from both sides, which means a buyer who has walked away still holds a signature you need. Our page on a sale that fell through covers handling that in the first 48 hours

Dates, possession and what happens if they slip

• The closing date, and who may extend it, how many times, and whether anything is payable to you if it moves
• Possession, which is not automatically the same moment as closing. If you need a few days after closing to move out, that belongs in the contract rather than in a conversation
• Any occupancy before or after closing, which needs its own written terms and is a common source of disputes
• What happens if a tenant is in the property. A lease generally survives the sale and the buyer takes subject to it. Our article on whether a lease survives a house sale covers it
• Condition on delivery, what stays and what goes. Write the list in rather than agreeing it verbally, because this is the most common argument in the final week

Who pays what

Itemised, not summarised. "Buyer pays all closing costs" is a sentence, not a schedule. Look for the owner's title policy, the closing or escrow fee and how it is split, documentary stamps, recording fees, prorations of tax, any HOA transfer or document fee, and any administrative or processing fee the buyer's side charges.

Then compare it against our page on Oklahoma closing costs, which lists what each line actually is, so you can see whether anything customary has been shifted onto you.

Each side's way out

• The buyer's exits: inspection, appraisal, financing, title. Count them. Each one is a point at which the deal can end
• Your exits, which are usually far fewer. Read what happens if you decide not to sell, because a clause requiring you to pay the buyer's costs is not standard and is worth questioning
• Default remedies, which say what each side gets if the other fails to perform
• Any dispute resolution clause, which decides where a disagreement goes
• Whether the buyer may record anything against your property, such as a memorandum of the contract. That can cloud your title and outlast the deal, so ask

The short version

Read five things in any purchase contract before you sign: who is buying and whether they can assign, what can change the price, how much earnest money there is and who holds it, the closing and possession dates with what happens if they slip, and each side's way out.

Our own contracts say the price does not change after we have walked the house, and the repair estimate is attached so you can check the arithmetic. Ask any buyer, including us, for that in writing rather than in conversation.