Prepare your sale, from listing to settlement.

Your document file

Gather these before the listing appointment, so the facts of the home are ready for buyers and their lenders.

• Mortgage payoff details
• Property tax bills, and any HOA or condo fees
• Assessments and easements
• Your deed and the location survey
• The plat and a floor plan
• Earlier title documents
• Condo bylaws or HOA documents
• Earlier inspection reports
• Utility bills
• Well and septic records, if the home has them
• Warranties
• Your homeowner’s insurance

Your disclosures

In Washington, DC.

• Complete and sign the seller’s disclosure statement yourself, and give it to the buyer before or when they sign the contract. It applies to a home of one to four units the buyer will live in.17 DCMR 2708, the formD.C. Code 42-1302
• Include the lead water test results and the lead service line, which the statement covers.D.C. Code 42-1305
• Where you do not know the answer to an item, say that it is unknown.D.C. Code 42-1304
• If the home is rented, give your tenant written notice within 3 days of receiving or asking for an offer.D.C. Code 42-3404.09

Lead paint

Repairs and preparation

Repairs, touch-ups and staging you plan before photography, with what each may cost.

What conveys

Fixtures, appliances, window treatments and anything else, written into the sale as staying or going.

Your launch path

How the home comes to market on Bright MLS.

Not sure which? Find your listing path. What happens at each stage: how we market your home.

Net proceeds

Offers side by side

Up to three offers, term by term.

Key dates

Enter the dates as they are set, and the deadlines that follow from them appear in order.

Settlement

• Ask your lender for the mortgage payoff statement.
• Keep the utilities on for the buyer’s final walk-through.
• If you are a US person, sign the certification that you are not a foreign person, so no FIRPTA withholding is due.IRS, FIRPTA withholding
• If you are a foreign person, the buyer withholds 15% unless a withholding certificate reduces it. If you apply on Form 8288-B, tell the buyer in writing on the day of the transfer or the day before.IRS, FIRPTA withholdingIRS, Form 8288-B
• If the home stops qualifying for the homestead deduction more than 30 days before the deed is signed, ask the Office of Tax and Revenue to cancel it, on MyTax.DC.gov, within 30 days.DC Office of Tax and Revenue

After settlement

• If you receive Form 1099-S, report the sale on your return, even when the gain is excluded.IRS, Form 1099-SIRS Topic 701
• Check the exclusion: up to $250,000 of gain, or $500,000 on a joint return, after owning and living in the home 2 of the last 5 years.IRS Topic 701