Exiting your Landed Contract without a Sale of the Home
If you are refinancing or accessing a HELOC to exit, we recommend talking to your lender (you can use any lender you'd like) about what you may qualify for early in the process.
To formally start the exit process, you will complete Landed's intent to terminate form (which you can request over email) and send it back to us. This form will ask you about any improvements you have made to the home, so if you have made any improvements be prepared to submit receipts and photos.
Appraisal Process — To determine the value of you Landed contract, we will need to send an independent, licensed appraiser to the home. Currently, we work with Axis Appraisal Management so that Landed never has a direct relationship with any appraiser. This appraiser will deliver a report containing the appraiser's best judgment on the home's value. Once this report is generated, we will send you the report and a termination package. You have the option to [1] proceed with the exit at the appraised value, [2] decide not to buy-out Landed, or [3] dispute the appraisal.
Remember that you are responsible for the cost of the appraisal. Typically these fees are between $500 and $900 depending on the market and whether the appraiser is also assessing the value of your improvements. They will be added to your contract buy-out amount.
Confirm Buy-Out Amount — If you want to proceed with [1] (ie. the termination of the contract) you will need to sign Landed's termination package within 10 days of receipt.
Final Payment — You (or your refinancing lender) will have 45 days to remit payment to Landed based on your termination package. Once Landed receives the payment, we will file our Full Reconveyance with the county recording office, thus ending our stake in your home.
Final note: Remember that Landed's contract works best when the exit is done via sale. This is because an appraisal can never be as accurate as a market transaction. As a result, do not initiate a non-sale exit if you intend to sell the home within the next six months. If you do, Landed's contract (Section 5.5) contains a clawback provision that allows us to use the sales price as the termination value and collect the difference from you.
Exiting Your Contract With the Sale of the Home
Similar to a non-sale exit, to formally start the exit process, you will complete Landed's intent to terminate form (which you can request over email) and send it back to us. This form will ask you about any improvements you have made to the home, so if you have made any improvements be prepared to submit receipts and photos.
Standard Sale — The key to determining the exit process is determining whether you plan to follow (or have followed) a Standard Sale. Your contract defines a Standard Sale as [1] working with an experienced local agent, [2] listing your home on the MLS for at least 14 days (the time can be waived by Landed upon request), [3] holding at least two open houses, and [4] selling the home to a non-related party (ie. not your relative or friend). If you follow the Standard Sale path, the sales price of the home will set the exit price of the Landed contract. If you do not follow the Standard Sale path, Landed reserves the right to use an appraisal to set the exit price of the contract.
Improvements — Just like the non-sale process, if you've made major improvements that you want us to value (improvement projects exceeding $5,000), we will need to send an appraiser to the home to value them (see non-sale section for more detail on appraisals). We will send the appraiser after you have accepted an offer on the home, such that the appraiser can ground their improvement estimates in the anticipated sales value.
Landed Approval — Landed needs to confirm and approve your offer to acknowledge that it meets the conditions of the Standard Sale. We generally review offers within a few hours, especially if you or your realtor gives us a heads up that an offer is coming.
Closing the Transaction — Once you have accepted the offer to sell your home, and improvements (if any) have been assessed, Landed will generate a payoff statement for your signature. After you sign the document, we will coordinate with your escrow company to make sure that our lien is released and that our share of the purchase money is sent to the right place.