Check your contracts and your calendar before giving notice to your landlord.

If you’re a renter who is in the process of buying a home, whether you’re a first time homebuyer or a more seasoned homebuyer, giving notice to your landlord should be one of the most important steps on your To Do List as you get ready for your move.

Assuming that you don’t want to become temporarily homeless between your rental and your new home, you’ll need to give some careful thought as to what move-out date you’ll be giving your landlord.

Check Your Lease

The first thing to do is to check your lease. Most people assume that there is a 30-day notice requirement, but there’s always the chance that yours is different.

Read Your Purchase Contract

Make sure that you’re crystal clear as to when the previous owner of your new home (the current seller) will be moving out. On a vacant home, you should get your keys by early evening on the date that escrow closes. On occupied homes, you may have complied with the sellers’ request to give them a few days to move out when you wrote your offer. Make sure that you factor this in to your moving plans!

Read Your Escrow Instructions

This may seem like a silly thing to do, but escrow does make mistakes… Be sure that the closing date on your escrow instructions is the correct number of days from the date your offer was accepted, and make sure that it’s not on a weekend or on a Monday. Why? You can’t close escrow over the weekend, and closing on a Monday means that you’ll be paying interest on your new loan over the weekend. If you find that the closing date doesn’t make sense, contact your Realtor and make sure that this is corrected with an escrow amendment.

New Construction Cautions

Buying new construction can be a lot trickier than buying a resale home when it comes to selecting move dates. Although the builders do their best to determine when homes will be ready, quite often they’re not ready on time. This is especially true when your home is in a future phase, meaning a phase other than the one they’re building right now. Expect construction delays on new homes, and be sure to get regular updates as to how your home is progressing and any anticipated delays.

Eeny, Meeny, Miney… How to Select a Move-Out Date

Choosing the "drop dead" date to give your landlord, meaning the date that you absolutely must be out of your rental, can be a bit tricky. Choose a date too soon, and you’ll end up temporarily homeless, with all your stuff in tow. Choose a date too late, and you’ll still be paying rent even though you’ve already moved out.

What to do? My recommendation is to play it conservative, and give yourself at least a few days after you’re scheduled to get the keys to your new home. And remember to factor in those days that the seller can remain in place after the close of escrow!

NEVER have your close of escrow date as the same day that you’re supposed to vacate your rental. You may not get your keys early enough to move that day, and there’s always the possibility that escrow closing can be delayed a day or two. Although many lenders provide a "close on time guarantee", there is always the possibility that you’ll be closing escrow a bit later than you originally planned.

Negotiate With Your Landlord

If your lease term doesn’t exactly coincide with the move-in date for your new home, then you may have some negotiating to do. If there will still be some lease term remaining after your new home is ready to for move-in, then see if your landlord will let you out of a portion of that remaining lease term, either for no charge or for a rate less than your normal rent would have been.

If your lease term will expire before your new home is ready for you, then you’ll have to work out a month-to-month arrangement with your landlord so you can stay put for a little while longer.

Play it Safe

Play it safe and give yourself some leeway for a sane move, instead of risking either playing the Midnight Movers game or spending the night at a Motel 6 with your UHaul truck in tow.

Looking for homes in the Santa Clarita area? Santa Clarita Realtor Linda Slocum specializes in both new construction and resale homes. Call her at 661.670.0349 or click on the link below to email her, and be sure to check our Tips for Buying New Construction before you visit any new home sales offices!

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