The Deal That Almost Died Over a Signature

[Drago Stanimirovic]

This happened again recently.

Not for the first time. Probably not for the last.

And every time it does, I tell myself I should write about it, because it's one of those problems that almost everyone thinks will happen to someone else.

So. The deal was basically done. Financing was approved. The numbers worked. Everyone was talking about closing.

Then somebody noticed something small. A signature was missing. Or rather, the right person hadn't signed.

Everything stopped.

What struck me wasn't the mistake itself. It was that nobody had looked for it earlier.

That seems to happen more often than people realize. Nobody checks whether an ID has expired. Nobody confirms that the LLC name on one document matches the LLC name on another. Nobody notices that a driver's license expired three weeks ago, or that someone signed as an individual instead of as the managing member of the company.

Until one person checks. And suddenly what looked like a five-minute formality becomes the biggest problem in the transaction.

Now you're trying to renew an ID. Get someone to resign documents. Reschedule a closing. Coordinate attorneys, lenders, title companies, buyers and sellers...

All because of something that would've taken THIRTY SECONDS to catch a week earlier.

I've noticed something about real estate. People naturally focus on the difficult parts. Negotiating. Financing. Inspections. Appraisals.

Those deserve attention. But it's often the simple things that get ignored because they're "supposed" to be simple.

That's exactly why they become dangerous. These days, whenever a deal gets close to the finish line, I almost become more cautious, not less. I assume there's one small detail that nobody has looked at yet.

Most of the time I'm wrong. But when I'm right, that five-minute check can save days of scrambling.

Whatever your instincts tell you, check it anyway. Then check it again. Because the closer you get to closing, the more expensive a small oversight becomes.

(What's the smallest detail you've ever seen put an entire closing at risk?)