As this is a personal blog of our own experiences in dealing with Real Estate or home purchase in Orlando. Generally we are overwhelmed with the efficiency of the system, we have to point out some minor irritations also which as Brits we would not normally encounter when buying at home.
When you buy a home in Orlando you will be asked to sign a contract in order for your offer to be submitted. Don’t do this without reference to a Licensed Professional because you are signing an AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE make no mistake whatever you are told it is a legal document.
Usually, the document contains conditions so that if the home has hidden problems or you fail to obtain finance you can pull out but could lose any deposit that you put down.
Americans often only give a deposit of one or two thousand dollars right up until the day of completion so don't be drawn into leaving very large sums as a deposit unless you have been properly advised
Also be careful of contracts that are headed 'As Is'. They are normally for homes that are being sold by or in the control of banks and you will have less recourse than with standard contracts.
So, what's irritating? Well we are buying a home this week and unlike in the UK a majority of legal documents need to be notarised or witnessed. If we need to get a witness in the UK we can go to a solicitor and we do have Notaries in the UK who charge maybe £40 for a signature but in this case we have been asked to get the signature witnessed at the US Embassy and that is the only form acceptable.
We will have to sign many documents and these also arrive very late from the closing agents so we’ll have to Fedex all our documents
So Mr efficient USA will cost us £100 and a day into London this week and we still don’t know why
