Effective January 1, 2015, a new Residential Sales Contract will replace the Regional Sales Contract used by NVAR members. Differences between the two contracts are described here. To read about other form changes that will take effect on January 1.

RESIDENTIAL SALES CONTRACT – K1321
The Regional Sales Contract. The contract has been significantly modified. Upon review of the practice and forms available in DC and Maryland, the Standard Forms Committee concluded that the Regional Sales Contract was a concept that had run its course. It became clear that the various jurisdictional addenda modified the contract to such a point that there was no longer a core contract that could be used across all three jurisdictions. The committee concluded that for individuals infrequently practicing across jurisdictions, the Regional Sales Contract may have created a false sense of security in that agents may not have been aware of just how different each jurisdiction was.
The committee created a Residential Sales Contract. This contract will no longer require the use of a jurisdictional addendum as the provisions have been incorporated into the body of the main contract. This contract will not be useable in Maryland or DC.

Contract Date v. Date of Offer: The previous version of the contract used the term contract date in the first paragraph of the contract. This led to some confusion from the members as to the difference between contract date and date of ratification. The term contract date was misleading because it was intended to capture the date the offer is made. To that end, the committee changed the term contract date to the date of offer. 

Price and Specified Financing. Significant confusion arose out of the old definition of specified financing. We have changed the name of the paragraph. Now, everything in the Price and Financing paragraph constitutes “specified financing”. This is intended to resolve questions about what is specified financing and when does a purchaser lose the protection of the financing contingency when modifying financing. A purchaser can now change lenders and, so long as the requirements of paragraph 15, Alternate Financing, are satisfied, the purchaser will enjoy the protection of the financing contingency. However, if a purchaser decides to go from a VA to a conventional loan, for example, the purchaser will have to execute the correct financing addendum and obtain the seller’s consent in order to retain the protection of the financing contingency.

Deposit. The purchaser now must indicate whether the Earnest Money Deposit has already been given to the escrow agent or whether it will be deposited in the future. If the second option is selected, it must state the number of days the purchaser has to deliver the