Purchase and Sale Contract Series Part 1 

The first part of the purchase and sales contract covers

who is purchasing?

This will cover who the Real Estate offices are and who they are representing, who the buyer is, and what are we selling. This will also include the property address and the legal description.

What part of that do you need to look over and be aware of? 

Who is buying? That should be you.  Are you buying with a spouse?  Separate? As a business or a LLC? Are your parents helping you?  This is probably something that you should be somewhat aware of prior to making an offer. 

If you are not sure you may want to seek legal counsel.   

Buying a Home by Yourself

If it’s just you and you are not legally married, then your legal name should be in the buyer’s section of the contract.  The legal name is going to be the name that you typically sign when you do legal stuff.  First name, middle initial, last name.  You will usually see the agents write “Single” or “Buying as Sole Buyer or buying Unmarried.”   

Be sure to check spelling to make sure there are no errors! 

Note: When you are closing your transaction your legal name will need to match your photo I.D. If that needs to be updated, be sure to put that on your to-do list as early as possible because a temporary I.D. will not get your transaction closed. Be sure to keep an eye on expiration dates!

I highly recommend this to be done prior to house shopping if you are at all close.

Buying a Home Separate from your Spouse

If you are buying separately, but you are married, then the contract is going to read your name as a married woman/man buying as sole and separate.   This is going to let the title company know that you have a spouse that needs to sign a quitclaim deed giving up their right to the property.   

*The title company is the one who is closing the contract. 

 Anytime in Idaho that you are buying property without your legal spouse, that person will have to fill out a quitclaim deed giving up their right to the property.  So technically no buying property without your spouse knowing about it.

 Buying a Home with a Spouse or a Partner 

If you are a married couple or a partnership that is buying together, then both names go on the purchase and sale agreement, and both parties sign. 

And once again it’s either a married couple or a partnership that neither person is married in, etc.  

 Purchasing as a Corporation, LLC, etc. 

Purchasing as a Corporation, LLC, etc.  If that is the way you are going to purchase, you will of course want to make sure that you have already set up the legal paperwork to become that entity. 

If you have not, then you will purchase by yourself, and on one of the last pages of the contract, there is a question if the contract can be assigned and you would want to make sure that it is marked “Yes” in that box.

Once you have your entity created, you can have your real estate agent do an addendum that allows you to change the name of the buyer of the property to the entity that you created.   

Anytime you think you are going to be changing the buyer of the contract, you want to make sure that the contract can be assigned. 

 Property Address and Legal Description 

The next section of the contract is just basically a part to verify.  And that is the address which is the house number/street name that the post office is going to go by, and the legal description. 

The legal description is a very important part of your contract. 

Every property has a legal description along with its postal description.  Your real estate agent should be able to pull that from the tax records and the property profiles that are available to them. 

You’ll want to make sure to look over the plat map for the property that matches the legal description and make sure it’s actually the property that you’re buying. 

You will also want to verify this when you get your Title Commitment from the Title Company as you move further along in your purchase. 

Sometimes you will find freshly subdivided land will be getting sold without its complete legal description at time of sale.  You certainly want to be keeping track of that prior to closing the property.  

Quite often the legal description will be long and not make a lot of sense to you if you are not familiar with them.  Here is a link to an article that explains legal descriptions made by our friends at Pioneer Title.  3 methods of legal descriptions in Idaho.

Any questions on this do not hesitate to Contact us and we are happy to help you or refer you to someone who can.

Be sure to check out other portions of our contract series:  Agency Who is working for you

Finance section of the purchase and sales agreement

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