The purchase and sale agreement, the P&S, is the full contract that governs your Townsend purchase from signing to closing. The accepted offer sets the headline terms. The P&S is where those terms become enforceable detail: the property, the price, the deposits, the deadlines, the contingencies, and what happens if either side fails to perform. It is the most important document you will sign before the closing itself.
What the P&S Contains
Beyond the offer's price and dates, the P&S spells out what is included in the sale, the title standard the seller must deliver, how deposits are held and when they can be forfeited, the mortgage commitment deadline, inspection and Title V provisions where they apply, and the extensions and notice rules that govern the timeline. Riders adjust the standard form for the property: condominiums bring association documents and fee provisions, multi-family purchases bring leases and rent provisions, and septic properties bring Title V language.
Your Attorney's Role
Massachusetts is an attorney state for real estate, and your attorney reviews the P&S before you sign, negotiates the language that protects your deposits and deadlines, and later conducts or reviews the closing. The standard form is a starting point written for a generic transaction. Your attorney's edits are where your specific risks, an older Townsend home's systems, a condo building's finances, a tenant in place, get addressed in writing instead of hoped about.
The Deposit at Signing
Signing the P&S is when your main deposit is due, bringing your combined deposits to about 5 percent of the price, held in escrow until closing. That timing is why the signing matters financially as well as legally: once signed, the contract's remedies are live, and the deposit is genuinely at stake outside your contingencies. Read the commitment deadline and the closing date in the signed document, not from memory of the offer, because the P&S is what controls.
Buyers sometimes treat the days between the accepted offer and the P&S as a pause. They are not. They are when the contract gets built, and the quality of that build decides how the rest of the transaction behaves under stress. Show up to it: read the draft, ask your attorney what each clause does, and make sure the deadlines in the document match the plan you actually intend to keep.
If you want the P&S stage handled carefully on a Townsend purchase, with an attorney looped in from the offer, call Doherty Properties at (978) 746-0124 and ask for me, Chris Doherty.
Chris Doherty is the #1 selling agent in Lowell, ranked #1 in the city again and again, including in 2024 and 2025, and he is one of Greater Lowell's top-producing agents. He personally sells 100+ homes a year, with 3,000+ career transactions, and Doherty Properties, the company he leads, has handled over $1 billion in real estate transactions.
Doherty Properties LLC, 14 Jackson Street, Lowell, MA 01852 | 160 Main Street, Unit 7, Haverhill, MA 01830 | 4 Courthouse Lane, Suite 2, Chelmsford, MA 01824 | (978) 746-0124 | [email protected]
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