I posted this in the other forum before i noticed that this forum existed so here it is... Hi there. I am a newly licensed agent and i have a few questions... i helped a buyer submit an offer and i got a counter offer... it seemed kinda confusing and the seller's agent is not trying to help me at all in understanding it.. here are some terms of counter offer:

-seller won't provide "gap" title insurance
-buyer pays county, city transfer taxes
-escrow/title: buyer and seller to each pay for their own closing costs/fees
-seller will not pay for any fees associated with financing property
-proration of property taxes shall be paid current through close of escrow. Any payments or bonds not yet due shall be assumed by buyer
-Seller will pay a portion of buyer's closing costs not to exceed $10,000. unused portion to be returned to seller.

What confuses me is what exactly is the seller going to be paying for closing costs? seems from all the other points that they're not paying for any of it, yet the last line says they will pay $10,000. There's a part that says the buyer and seller will each pay their own closing costs. Seems like contradicting statements... i really need to clear this up and explain to my buyer... HELP!!! Thanks!!!

It sounds to me like the seller excluded in the contract all the things that you would be asking for them to pay with the 10,000. You need to check with the sellers agent and clarify. I would ask it looks like you are willing pay 10,000 in closing costs, prepaids, and points but you have also specifically excluded anything we could use the 10,000 on.

I agree with Ohio Realtor
I do have one thing to add and it refferences
"-proration of property taxes shall be paid current through close of escrow. Any payments or bonds not yet due shall be assumed by buyer"

Generally its when the taxes has been assesed not when due. As well as in your state do you pay taxes in arrears or in advance. If you are like Florida and pay in arrears then yes it could make a difference. Especually what time of year are you closing. For Example here in Jan we just paid taxes for 2006. The taxes for 2007 are not assesed till arround Oct-Nov. What we do is prorate taxes and the seller credits the buyer a proration based on 2006 taxes.

Watch out for those bonds.

This just stinks of someone trying to get you to pay the full boat for a bond assessment that is due soon.

The way it is worded, I would guess that some assessment is coming up. Reword that part of the deal to stipulate that any bond assessments will be prorated and the seller will be responsible for any bond fees covering the period of time that the seller was in possession of the property.

Direct your questions to the folks at the title/escrow company. They will know the way things work in your area and give you a simple explanation of what it all boils down to.

R

Yes, watch out for the bond thing- make sure your buyers aren't going to be stuck with a big bill.
The agent is probably trying to make sure that the sellers aren't paying for all of those expenses and then having to pay $10,000 on top of that- would be my guess.
If that is the case, they should not have said that the seller won't pay those things, but they should have defined them as a buyers cost. Then in the last line they would have said they would pay up to $10,000 for the buyers cost.
I think what they are trying to avoid is saying that those things are all sellers costs- and then the $10,000 they are paying toward buyers costs would be in addition to those things.
I would have worded it something like:
- "Gap" title insurance shall be at the expense of the buyer.
- County and city transfer taxes shall be at the expense of the buyer.
-escrow/title: Buyer's closing costs/fees shall be at the expense of the buyer.
-Any cost related to the buyer's loan shall be at the expense of the buyer.
-proration of property taxes shall be paid current through close of escrow. Any payments or bonds not yet due shall be assumed by buyer
-Seller will pay up to $10,000 toward buyer's expenses to include closing costs, loan closing fees and pre-paid items. Any unused portion to be returned to seller.
Check with your broker. They could want something totally different. Besides, that might not even be what the other agent was trying to get at... I could be totally wrong and way off base. Check with your attorney, check with an accoutant... I'm not offering advise... Don't mind me... (If I wrote it myself I would have done it differently- I just left it as close to what the other agent wrote as possible).