Here’s a scenario I see more often than sellers realize. An offer gets accepted. Everyone’s excited. The buyer’s agent asks to schedule the home inspector for the next morning. The appraiser wants access. The buyer’s contractor wants to walk the yard for a quote. All of it feels normal, all of it feels like momentum, and most agents just say yes and get out of the way.

Here’s what nobody’s checking in that moment: has the earnest money deposit actually landed in escrow yet?

Almost every time, the honest answer is no. It’s still “on its way.” And that one detail is the difference between a seller who is actually protected by their contract and a seller who only thinks they are.

What the earnest money deposit is actually supposed to do

The earnest money deposit isn’t a fee, and it isn’t a gift to the seller. It sits in escrow, untouched, as the buyer’s proof that they’re serious. If the deal falls apart later for a reason the contract doesn’t protect the buyer on, that deposit is what the seller has to show for the weeks the home sat off the market, showings stopped, and other buyers walked away.

That’s the whole design. The deposit is supposed to exist from nearly the very beginning of the deal, specifically so the seller has something real backing up the buyer’s word while the buyer gets full access to inspect, investigate, and evaluate the home.

The gap almost nobody talks about

Here’s the part that should bother every seller, and mostly doesn’t, because most people never think to ask.

Under a standard California purchase contract, the earnest money deposit is typically due within a few business days of acceptance. But the buyer’s inspection and investigation period, the clock that lets them bring in inspectors, appraisers, contractors, and anyone else, starts counting down from the day of acceptance itself. Not from the day the deposit shows up. Not from the day escrow confirms funds received. From acceptance.

Read that again, because it’s the whole problem: the buyer’s access clock and the seller’s financial protection are not tied together. A buyer can be well into their inspection period, walking the home, running tests, pulling contractors through the garage, before a single dollar has actually left their account.

If that buyer decides, for whatever reason, to walk away before ever funding the deposit, the seller is left holding exactly nothing. No deposit to show for the exposure. No leverage. Just a home that sat off the market while a buyer who was never actually committed got a completely free look.

Why letting this slide defeats the entire purpose

I want to be precise about this, because it gets misunderstood constantly: this isn’t about the seller trying to hold anybody’s money. Nobody’s trying to squeeze a buyer or make their life difficult. It’s actually the opposite. The seller isn’t holding anything, because there’s nothing there yet to hold.

The point is simpler than that. If a seller allows inspections, showings, and full access to proceed before the deposit is actually confirmed in escrow, the seller has given the buyer everything the contract promises them, while getting none of what the contract promises back. That’s not a technicality. That’s the entire protective purpose of the deposit, gone, for no reason other than nobody checked.

The contract was written so both sides move at the same time: the buyer gets access, the seller gets a funded deposit backing that access. Skip the second half and you haven’t relaxed the contract. You’ve quietly rewritten it in the buyer’s favor, and the seller never agreed to that version.

What I actually do about it

For every seller I represent, I don’t authorize the buyer’s side to move forward, inspectors scheduled, appraisers in, contractors walking the property, until I have real confirmation the earnest money deposit has actually been funded and received in escrow. Not “it’s coming.” Not “the check is in the mail.” Confirmed, funded, in escrow.

That’s it. That’s the whole policy. It costs a serious buyer nothing, because a serious buyer was always going to fund that deposit inside the window they already agreed to. All it does is remove the version of events where a buyer gets a full free inspection period on a home that was never really under contract in any way that mattered.

If a buyer’s side pushes back on that, that itself tells you something worth knowing before you go any further with them.

What to ask your own agent

If you’re selling, or about to, ask this plainly: “Do you confirm the earnest money deposit is actually in escrow before you let the buyer’s side start inspections and access?” Watch how they answer. A lot of agents have never even thought about the gap, because most of the time it doesn’t matter, most buyers do fund on time, and nothing ever goes wrong. But you don’t build seller protection around most of the time. You build it around the one buyer who doesn’t follow through, and by the time that happens, it’s too late to go back and ask for the access you already gave away.

I’m Connor MacIvor, Connor with Honor, Santa Clarita’s seller’s only agent. Call or text me any time at 661-888-4983. All commissions are negotiable (CA B&P 10140.6).

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