Selling by owner
The offer, the contract, and what happens after inspection
Which paperwork a California sale actually runs on, the contingency clock a seller needs to understand, what a deposit really protects, and the short list of repairs that are genuinely required.
What paperwork do I need to sell my house in California?
A San Diego County sale runs on two stacks of paper: the purchase contract, which is almost always the California Residential Purchase Agreement, and the statutory disclosure package the seller owes regardless of who represents them. Escrow and title generate the rest.
Assemble the disclosure stack before listing rather than after an offer, because delivering it late hands the buyer a fresh right to cancel — the full list and the deadline are on the disclosures page. Add anything documenting the house itself: permits, warranties, the roof invoice, the solar paperwork, HOA governing documents and dues statements.
An unrepresented seller cannot obtain C.A.R. forms directly, since they are licensed to association members. In practice by-owner sellers work from the buyer's agent's copy of the contract, or engage a real estate lawyer or transaction coordinator to prepare and review. That is a reasonable place to spend money.
What is the California Residential Purchase Agreement?
The California Residential Purchase Agreement is the standard contract behind nearly every San Diego County home sale. It sets price, deposit, financing terms, the contingency timetable and the closing date, and it doubles as the joint escrow instructions once both parties have signed.
Its default timetable is the part a seller most needs to read, because it governs how long the buyer can walk away with their deposit: seventeen days for the buyer's investigation, seventeen for the appraisal and twenty-one for loan approval, each running from acceptance. Those are defaults, not fixtures — a competitive offer often shortens them, and shorter periods are worth real money to a seller.
Contingencies do not lapse on their own in California. They are removed in writing, and until a buyer delivers that removal the protection stands even after the date has passed. A seller who wants them gone issues a notice to perform rather than assuming the calendar did the work.
How much earnest money should I ask for, and can I keep it?
Earnest money on a San Diego County sale is negotiated rather than fixed, and it is held by escrow rather than by the seller. California treats a deposit of up to three percent of the purchase price as a presumptively reasonable amount for the seller to keep as liquidated damages if the buyer defaults, under Civil Code §1675.
Above three percent the presumption reverses and the seller has to justify the figure, so an unusually large deposit is not the protection it appears to be. The liquidated damages clause also only works if it was separately signed or initialled by both parties and set out clearly — an unsigned clause is not enforceable, and that is the sort of detail a by-owner seller can miss.
Keeping a deposit is harder in practice than the clause suggests. A buyer walking away inside an unremoved contingency is exercising a right rather than defaulting, and escrow will not release funds to either party without mutual written instruction or a court order. Size the deposit to signal seriousness; do not treat it as a fund you expect to collect.
What fixes are mandatory after a home inspection?
Almost nothing is mandatory after a home inspection on a San Diego County resale. California requires only three physical corrections before transfer — earthquake strapping on the water heater, working smoke alarms on every level, and carbon monoxide alarms near the sleeping areas. Everything else the inspector writes up is negotiable.
The important qualifier is the buyer's lender. A lender can decline to fund until a safety or structural item is resolved, and government-backed loans apply that more strictly than conventional ones. So an item can be optional as between buyer and seller and still be non-negotiable if the deal depends on that loan.
A seller can decline every requested repair. What follows is the buyer deciding whether to proceed, which is why the practical answer is usually a credit rather than a refusal or a repair — a credit closes on time, avoids a contractor on your calendar, and lets the buyer choose their own finish.
How do I counter an offer on my house?
Countering an offer on a San Diego County home means responding in writing with the terms you will accept, which legally rejects the original offer and replaces it. A verbal counter is worth nothing here: contracts for real property have to be in writing to be enforceable in California.
Counter on more than price. Contingency periods, closing date, the deposit, what a buyer's agent is paid and whether the sale is contingent on the buyer selling their own home are all levers, and several are worth more to a seller than the last ten thousand dollars of price. Shortening a seventeen-day investigation period to ten shortens the window in which the whole deal can evaporate.
Move quickly and keep the tone flat. A counter rejects their offer, which means the buyer is free to walk, and serious buyers are usually looking at other houses while they wait. Volunteer nothing about why you are moving or how the listing has been going, because every such detail is read as negotiating information.
Want a second opinion on the number?
Send the address and we will build the same net sheet we would build for a listing client — what the sale nets at three different prices, every cost line itemised, no automated estimate. There is no obligation and no pitch attached: if it tells you to carry on alone, that is a useful answer and it costs you nothing to have it.
Team Azizi is one of the top 10 real estate teams in the county (San Diego Business Journal, October 2025), with 1,016 closed sales behind those numbers.
Last updated 2026-09-11