Read Public Act 25-168 four times and the 90 day rule still loses me

I read everything twice and I've now read this one four times.

What I understand. It takes effect July 1, 2026. It requires wholesalers to register. It gives the seller a three day window to cancel. And it bars a closing date set more than 90 days out.

The first three make sense to me as consumer protection. Registration creates a list of who's doing this. The cancellation window handles a seller who signs at the kitchen table under pressure. Both of those I can explain to someone else.

The 90 day cap I can't. Why would the length of a closing period be the thing a legislature reaches for? My guess is that long closings are how a wholesaler holds a property off the market for months while shopping the contract, so the seller is tied up and can't sell to anyone else, and a cap limits how long that can run. But that's me inventing a reason for a rule, which is a habit I'm trying to break.

What I'm actually doing with this. I'm not in Connecticut and I'm not wholesaling. I'm trying to learn how to read a statute and work out what behavior it's aimed at, because these keep appearing. Six new laws in five states in 2025, and California's AB 1850 introduced in February 2026 and stuck in committee as of the middle of this year.

So the question I can't answer on my own: is the 90 day cap aimed at the tie-up problem I described, or at something in the mechanics of assignment that I'm not seeing?

Answer

0stephen_ok9CO2CPRO6

Your read on the tie-up is the usual explanation and it holds up. A purchase contract with a long closing date functions as an option the seller granted without being paid for an option. The property is off the market, the seller can't sign with anyone else without risking a breach, and the buyer spends that window looking for someone to take the contract. If nobody shows, the buyer walks on an inspection or financing contingency and the seller has lost four months of market time.

The 90 day cap doesn't ban that. It puts a ceiling on how long the seller's property can be held that way, which is a blunt instrument and probably deliberately so. Legislatures reach for durations because durations are easy to enforce. Proving that someone marketed a property they didn't own requires reading emails. Proving a closing date is 140 days out requires reading one line of the contract.

Read it alongside the three day cancellation window. Together they're aimed at the same shape of complaint, which is a seller who signed something they didn't understand and couldn't get out of. The cancellation window covers the first 72 hours and the closing cap covers the back end.

How any of it actually applies to a given contract is a question for a Connecticut attorney, and the effective date means nobody has watched it operate yet. Worth watching what the first enforcement actions look like after July 2026, since that's usually where the real scope of a statute shows up.

Read Public Act 25-168 four times and the 90 day rule still loses me

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