waiting on a deed...

[Dan Ross]

My wife and I are in the process of buying a reo from countrywide. We originally wrote in our offer to close the end of january, countrywide pushed it back to February 19th with their counter.

We have completed everything for financing etc, now we are just waiting on countrywide to send the deed. They have had about 3 weeks since their first notice from the title office and a couple days ago they sent a second notice.

My questions are:

1. How long should it take for them to get the deed together and sent over to the title clerk.

2. If we sign the mortgage docs before the deed is in, does the mortgage begin immediately or does it have to wait until the deed is recorded? (I don't want the mortage to begin until we are ready to move in).

thanks

dan