Listing checklist versus a buyer file

When a listing checklist and a buyer checklist are different lists, and which lines stay off a listing until that file is under contract.

Brokers look up a listing checklist and a buyer checklist because one form is tempting. One form is how a live listing gets marked missing a purchase agreement, and how a closed listing was never asked for one. Your state and your brokerage decide which documents are required. What follows is not a form to copy, and it is not legal advice. It is how the two checklists stay apart, and how the office's own lines are the ones a file is held to. The other back-office guides are on the guides page.

Four kinds, four checklists

Starting a file asks what kind it is: a listing, a listing that sold, a buyer file, or a referral. Each kind is given its own checklist. The list the agent sees is the one for that kind, as soon as the kind is chosen.

A listing that sold is still the seller's side. It is the same shape of work as a listing, one file, not a second record for the property and not a sign that your office represented the buyer. Representing the buyer is a buyer file, on the buyer checklist. A referral is neither. Put a referral on the buyer checklist and the file is asked for a purchase agreement it does not have, while the referral agreement the office does collect has nowhere to land.

What a listing is asked for first

A listing is filed when it is taken, often months before anyone writes an offer. Its checklist at that moment is the listing's own lines: the agreement that created the listing, and the disclosures your office collects then. Those lines are reviewed while the listing is only a listing. They stay on the file after it goes under contract. Their approvals do not get thrown out because a buyer appeared.

The sale's documents are a later set of lines on that same listing checklist. The Checklists screen says, under those lines, that they are asked for once the file goes pending. Pending here means a pending date or an acceptance date on the file. Offices often learn one of those dates long before the other, so either one opens the lines. Final review opens them too, for a file that reached it on or after the day the Checklists screen names, so those documents are part of what the office clears.

Until one of those is true, the sale's lines are not shown as missing. A listing that has not sold is complete or incomplete on the listing's own lines only. When you already have the listing filed and it later goes under contract, put the pending date or the acceptance date on that file. Do not open a second file for the same listing, and do not treat it as a buyer file. A file keeps one checklist, so the buyer list is not added on top of the listing list.

A line you add yourself is asked for from the start, on every new file that uses that checklist. Naming it for the sale does not make it wait. If a document belongs only after the listing is under contract, put it on the lines that already wait. Otherwise a brand-new listing will show it as owed.

A closed, paid, or failed file is not given new empty sale lines. A line that already holds a document, or once did, stays on the file. The same is true of a file that reached final review before the day named under those lines on the Checklists screen. A file that was ready is not marked incomplete because the waiting lines exist.

A listing that has already sold

Open that file as a listing that sold, not as a plain listing and not as a buyer file. It is given the other listing checklist, and that checklist asks for the listing's documents and the sale's documents together, from the day the file is opened. There is nothing to wait for. You already know it is under contract.

Use the plain listing when the listing is still only a listing. Use listing-that-sold when you are filing a listing that is already under contract, including one you are entering after the fact. Both are listing checklists. Neither is the buyer checklist, and neither means your office brought the buyer.

What a buyer file is asked for

A buyer file starts on the buyer side. Its checklist has no waiting set. Every line the office marked is in force when the file is opened, because that file is the side under contract. Do not park a buyer file on the listing checklist in order to "add the sale later." The sale, on a listing, is a second set of lines. On a buyer file the contract is the reason the file exists.

The two lists will share some paperwork and differ on purpose. The agreement that created the listing is a listing line. The agreement that created the buyer relationship is a buyer line. The purchase agreement belongs with the sale. A disclosure the office collects at listing time can also be collected again, executed, once a buyer is on it. Those are two lines, not one line counted twice, when your office treats them as two documents.

Required does not have to match across the lists. Paper the other brokerage produces can be optional on your listing checklist and required on your buyer checklist, because on the buyer file your office is the one who has to have it. Mark that on the line. Do not keep a single required flag and hope both sides can live with it.

What differs	Listing checklist	Buyer checklist
When the file starts	When the listing is taken, before a contract	When the buyer side is opened
First lines	The listing agreement and the disclosures collected then	The buyer relationship, the purchase agreement, and that side's disclosures
The contract's documents	Waiting lines, off until the listing is under contract or at final review	On the list from the day the file is opened
A listing already under contract	File it as a listing that sold, so every listing line is asked for now	Still a buyer file if this side is the buyer
The other side's paper	Optional when another brokerage is the one who has it	Required when your office is the one who must produce it
A line you add	Asked for from the start. It does not join the lines that wait	Asked for from the start

The cells are the shape of the difference, not the documents your state requires. Write the words your office already says. A line named with an initialism only the last software understood will sit empty while the PDF is in the file under a plain name. A line with no name cannot be asked for at all. The office's checklist is the list. Another brokerage's list is not.

A change lands on files already open

The broker-owner or the office manager edits each checklist on the Checklists screen. A new file of that kind is given the list as it stands that day. Before the edit is saved, the screen names the open files the change would hit, so a new required line does not appear the night before closing on a file that was complete yesterday. Look at that list. Adding a line to the buyer checklist does not rewrite listing files, and the reverse.

An agent meets the checklist on the file. They do not edit the master lists, and they are not shown how many other files a change would touch. If a line is wrong, that is a conversation with the office, not a private edit on one file that leaves the next file on the old list.

The dates are different too

A listing checklist sits next to listing dates: the day the listing started and the day it expires. Expiry matters while the listing is still open. A buyer checklist sits next to the contract: acceptance, inspection, financing, and closing. Inspection and financing are often a count of calendar days from the contract date.

The transaction timeline calculator turns that count into dates and marks a Saturday or a Sunday. Read the purchase agreement before you treat a calculated date as the deadline the contract means. Some agreements skip weekends and holidays. The calculator does not read the contract, and it does not keep what you type.

Documents and commission are the next two jobs

Which records belong in the file, who adds them, and who says they are complete is what to keep in a transaction file. This page stops at which checklist those records are checked against.

A file can have every checklist line approved and still owe a statement that matches the figures the title company was given. That order of checks is how to reconcile commission at closing. The document lines and the commission lines are both owed. They are not the same lines.

Questions brokers ask

Is a listing checklist the same as a buyer checklist?

No. A listing and a buyer file are given different checklists. A listing that has sold stays on a listing checklist. It does not move onto the buyer checklist. A referral has a checklist of its own.

When does a listing checklist ask for the sale's documents?

The lines the Checklists screen marks as asked for once the file goes pending open when that file has a pending date or an acceptance date, or when it reaches final review on or after the day that screen names. Until then a listing is not missing them. A line the office adds is asked for from the start.

Who decides which lines are required?

The office does, on each checklist separately. A line can be required on the buyer checklist and optional on the listing checklist. Your state's rules are yours to apply. This page is not a form to adopt, and it is not legal advice.

Try it on your own office

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