What Does It Mean To Fall Out Of Escrow?

I got this question in an email, and almost blew it off, but then I realized for every person who actually asks, there are probably at least a dozen who are unclear but don't ask, and I apologize that I almost blew off the question.

This is one of those questions with a deceptively simple answer. Transactions fall out of escrow because something goes wrong with the terms of the purchase contract as negotiated. This happens in all kinds of areas, not just real estate.

In real estate, it is usually not the fault of the escrow officer. I have encountered exceptions to this rule (I had one close in May where the escrow officer tried their damnedest to sink it), but they are rare. The escrow officer is simply a hired middleman that handles the actual exchange by verifying everyone involved has in fact done everything spelled out in the contract, and assisting in certain ways those items which cannot be accomplished until close of escrow.

It is possible to fall out of escrow on a refinance, but nobody talks about it that way because the issues are a lot more limited, so usually people describe this in specific terms, such as "Couldn't qualify for the loan," or "The appraisal came in too low." These apply to purchase escrows as well, but the phrase "fall out of escrow" enables agents to avoid finger-pointing, and agents never know when the target you point at today is going to be someone whose good opinion you want tomorrow. Ergo, the commonality of the phrase. It may make it seem like escrow is the bad guy, but that is only rarely the case. There isn't some group of Nazgul masquerading as escrow officers going around and doing evil things to your real estate transaction. It's mostly a way of avoiding any unnecessary bad feelings from a broken transaction.

The most common way a transaction falls out of escrow is the buyer fails to qualify for the requisite loan. For the buyer, this can be avoided by making certain ahead of time that you're going to qualify, staying within budget, and - the step that many are neglecting right now - following the market while you're shopping. For sellers, it's more complex because you can't steer business, but it is doable.

The next most common way transactions fall out of escrow is that the inspection reveals something that wasn't anticipated in the purchase contract, and the seller and buyer can't agree on what's going to be done about it. This is one of the reasons why I'm so fixated on finding all the issues I can before we make an offer. Sure the inspector is probably going to find other stuff, but if it's all trivial, normal wear and tear, we don't have a threat to the transaction. Put those on the table during initial negotiations, and you've already got agreement before you've invested days to weeks and hundreds of dollars into a transaction. You would not believe how much this changes your outcome for the better without trying it.

Even if you don't catch everything ahead of time, be reasonable in negotiations after you find the problem. You can't force the other side to be reasonable, but if you control what you can control, chances are better that you'll come to a mutually satisfactory amendment. Remember, you wanted this deal in the first place. For the buyer or the seller, trying to sweeten it unreasonably because of a new fact is going to lose that transaction. Furthermore, the buyer has the inspection contingency to protect them, while they can decide to carry through on the sale on the previously negotiated contract even if the seller won't deal at all. Both buyer and seller jointly have the ability to decide whether the seller is going to fix it, give the buyer an allowance (usually a small amount larger than cost of fixing to make up for having to be the one to hassle with fixing it), or whatever else strikes them both as reasonable.

As you can see, neither one of these is the escrow officer's fault, and they shouldn't be blamed for something that's not their fault. It's not due to this (sarcasm) scary mysterious (end sarcasm) process called escrow - it's that there really was an issue endemic to the situation that the principals and the agents could not resolve in a satisfactory manner. There are any number of possible issues that the escrow process is intended to prevent: Title, unpermitted additions, you name it, it probably happens and agents deal with these issues regularly. The process of escrow is intended, in large part, to shake these problems out so that the buyer doesn't have nasty surprises later, and the seller really does get the money they're due for their property. Without escrow, the incidence of real estate problems would rise dramatically, as would the cost for dealing with them. If you understand escrow, you know that the reason for it, and why it's usually a consumer's best overall protection from bad transactions.

Caveat Emptor