Montgomery County, from offer to settlement
GCAAR paper, county transfer tax, and a resale certificate with a ten-to-fourteen day lead time. The Montgomery file has three places it reliably slips.
Montgomery County files are not unusually complicated. They are unusually punishing about one thing, and the rest follows a familiar shape.
The offer side
The critical documents are the GCAAR offer to purchase and the GCAAR residential contract of sale. Alongside them:
- Maryland disclosure and disclaimer statement
- Lead paint disclosure where the home predates 1978
- HOA or condo disclosure addendum where an association is involved
- Buyer pre-approval or proof of funds, which the agent needs visibility on
- Earnest money deposit confirmation, likewise
The two agent-visible items at the bottom of that list are worth calling out. Pre-approval and EMD confirmation are the ones a coordinator can chase but cannot resolve, so they belong in front of the agent rather than buried in a coordinator's queue.
The listing side
For a new listing the pack expects the Maryland seller disclosure, the Bright MLS input form, at least twenty-five property photos, lockbox and showing instructions, HOA documents, and a signed listing agreement.
The photo minimum is the item most often treated as a suggestion. It is in the pack because listings that go live short of it get relisted, and a relist is a data problem you carry for the whole marketing period.
Contract to close, and the item that decides your date
Six things run from ratification to settlement:
- Title company coordination
- Montgomery County transfer tax, tracked to closing
- The HOA resale certificate, allowing ten to fourteen days
- Home inspection contingency tracking
- Financing contingency tracking
- Final walkthrough, twenty-four to forty-eight hours before closing
Five of those are ordinary. The third one decides whether you close on time.
Ten to fourteen days is a floor. Order the certificate on day one, before you know whether you will need it urgently, because by the time you know, you will.
Order the resale certificate in week three of a thirty-day contract and the arithmetic simply does not work. Add the buyer's review window on top and the consumed calendar can approach three weeks. There is no amount of diligence in week four that recovers a certificate ordered in week three.
The walkthrough timing detail
The pack says twenty-four to forty-eight hours before closing, and that is deliberate. A walkthrough done a week ahead proves the property was in condition a week ago, which is not the question. Repairs get done late, tenants leave late, movers damage things on the way out. The walkthrough's value is entirely a function of how close to settlement it happens.
What to do on day one
The Montgomery file rewards front-loading more than most:
- Confirm the property's year built, because it determines whether lead paint applies
- Confirm whether an association is involved, and if so order the resale certificate immediately
- Open title
- Calendar the transfer tax so it reaches the settlement statement rather than surfacing at it
- Extract the inspection and financing contingency dates and put them where the agent can see them
Everything else on a Montgomery file can be recovered with effort. The resale certificate cannot, which is why it goes first.
A note on scope
These are the requirements our Montgomery County rule pack actually carries. Forms, taxes and disclosure timing change, and they should be verified with counsel for your jurisdiction before you rely on them. This is a working map of the file, not legal advice.