Title refused the assignment three days out. My addendum file saved $14,300.
This one closed last month and most of what mattered was the paperwork, so bear with me.
The property: a 1,450 square foot two story in an older working class neighborhood about 900 miles from me, second state I've worked. Contract at $121,000, end buyer at $135,300, so a $14,300 spread. Seller was an out of state heir who'd been paying a property manager to do nothing for two years. Everything by phone, text, and e-sign. A local agent I pay $250 a walk did photos and a video with the closet doors open, which is the only reason my buyer bid without visiting.
What nearly killed it: three days before scheduled closing, the title company said they wouldn't handle an assignment of the contract on this file. No statute cited, just their underwriter's policy. In the state I started in, assignments go through that office routinely, so I'd assumed the mechanism traveled. It doesn't. Escrow and title practice, and the disclosure rules around assigning, differ state to state, and you need an attorney licensed in the state to tell you what actually applies.
What saved it: I keep a per-state folder with a purchase agreement, an assignment addendum, and a plain disclosure to seller that I may assign or resell for a profit, all reviewed by local counsel before I sent a single offer in that market. Because the seller had signed a disclosure that named resale explicitly, I could restructure to two closings the same day without renegotiating anything with him. Cost me $2,900 in extra title fees, recording, and the transfer tax on the first leg, which came off my fee. Netted $11,400.
What I'd keep: the disclosure signed at contract, not at closing. The whole rescue depended on the seller having already agreed in writing to a thing he was going to find out about anyway.