Closing Services Only (CSO)

Typically a relocation policy which applies in the situation in which an employee obtains a potential buyer for his/her home before being initiated into a corporation’s relocation program and before an appraised value has been determined for his or her house. Here, the employee usually has already signed an agreement to sell the home to a potential buyer, and under the terms of the closing assistance policy, the only assistance already offered by the purchaser is to pay the employee his/her equity in the home and to close the sale to the potential buyer. In some programs, the employee may sign an offer to purchase to sell the home to the purchaser and assign the agreement with the potential buyer to the purchaser to close. In these programs, one alternative is for the employee to be relieved of his/her obligations with respect to the home when the offer to purchase between the employee and the purchaser is executed. If for some reason the closing with the potential buyer does not occur, the home is processed as an appraised value transaction with the employee being paid on the basis of the price in the agreement with the potential buyer. Another alternative is that the employee may not be relieved of his/her obligations with respect to the home until the closing with the potential buyer actually occurs. If for some reason the closing does not occur, the home is returned to the employee for subsequent disposition by the employee, which may include going through the program as an appraised value transaction.