Will Shutdowns Caused by COVID-19 Have an Impact on Contracts?

The document below is what our Texas Association of Realtors has provided us to help try to alleviate chaos in case a property in title is held up due to a COVID-19 shut down. This new amendment is well intentioned, but is certainly no panacea.

There are thousands of homes right now that don’t have this amendment. And even if those buyers and sellers are OK with the language, other people can be affected.

For example, let’s say there’s a delay in closing on a home caused by a shut down. There’s an automatic extension on the closing. That might work out for that particular buyer and seller, but what about the buyer of the buyer’s home? Where are they going to go while waiting for the home to close. And what if that buyer has a buyer for their home planning on closing on the same day.

What about the contract on the home the seller is buying? Those sellers aren’t bound by this agreement. Is that seller just going to let the buyer close on their home when things calm down? Can the seller terminate the contract and put it back on the market again? You can see this can have a domino effect.

I can think of so many potential issues and maybe even litigation nightmares. Hopefully, we’ll be back up an running in the not too distant future, but who knows? It’s just a mess right now.