One of my very first transactions, about 40 years ago, involved the sale of one of my listings in San Jose, California.

Everything went smoothly, my seller moved to Minnesota before closing, and the buyers decided to forego doing a walk-through for various reasons.

Escrow closed, I delivered the keys to the buyer’s agent, and everything went as planned.

Then, I got a call from the buyer’s agent, who informed me that his buyers had begun moving in, only to discover that there was no power on in the house.

I assumed that my seller had taken the utilities out of his name and that the buyers had failed to order the utilities transferred to their name.

But, that wasn’t what had happened!

The real reason?

My seller had removed all of the light bulbs in the house and took them with him to Minnesota!

Now you know why it’s standard practice for buyers to do a final “walk-thru” before closing!