We had an excellent question recently as follows:.

"There is, I believe, some confusion in the industry about when the seller should sign the contract when it is being negotiated and is being hand-amended".

"Say the buyer makes his offer and signs, but the seller changes either the conditions or the price.  Does the seller sign at the same time, or wait until the buyer has intialled those changes."

"This arises all the time and different agencies seem to do it different ways, each believing their way is correct."

We believe the answer is as follows:

1. There is no law requiring that the signatures to a real estate contract must be placed on the contract in any particular order.

2. In practical terms, having the seller counter-sign will mean one less meeting to get a binding contract .. if the buyer signs then you don't have to go and see the seller again !

Initials on contracts ...

There is no law requiring an amended contract to have initials alongside each and every amendment.  So why go to the trouble ?

When a contract is amended there is a very real risk of a dispute arising about exactly what was agreed.

Just this week, we had a meeting with a client where the contract was amended after it was signed, and the client had not seen changes made - and said that they had not agreed to those changes.

Insisting on each of the parties initialling all changes to the contract, goes a long way to preventing problems with the contract at a later time - and is "good form".