You’ve accepted a buyer’s offer for your home, and you’re gathered in an office with a cast that includes your buyer and attorney, real estate agents, loan officer, and your closing attorney. This is the closing, which usually occurs about a month to 45 days after you’ve accepted the offer, where you’re prepared to transfer the title. To got through a stack of documents—proof of homeowner’s insurance, loan applications, funds for closing costs, open an escrow account, etc—could take two hours, or it could take six hours. In some extreme cases it’ll take longer. Why? Could be anything—like a boulder in the living room that should have been removed.

Don’t believe me? Read on.

“I’d immediately find out who removes a boulder and how much it costs.”

The facts: Buying a co-op, a client discovered on his walk-through that there was a giant boulder in the living room. Turns out, the seller was a sculptor and didn’t have it removed. Furthermore, the buyer’s interest rate was expiring.

The Boland Team’s take: I’d immediately find out who removes a boulder and how much it costs. Then you would have the buyer reimbursed for it. The buyer’s attorney would most likely want to hold some money in escrow in case something went wrong and there was damage to the building when it was being removed. It helps to have a broker on your side at the closing table who is solution-oriented in case you encounter something out of the ordinary.

Everything at the closing table is numbers oriented. You can split the cost of moving a boulder, but you can’t split an actual boulder. Money—you can negotiate things like that. A boulder in the apartment, you can’t get around it (no pun intended), so you have to assign a dollar value to everything.

The Conclusion: Michael Moshan, real estate attorney and partner in Gold Scollar Moshan, PLLC, says: “We held back an enormous amount of money in escrow, with a ticking penalty provision, to insure that the bolder was removed as soon as possible. We closed with the withholding escrow.”