Closing Day: What to Expect (Plus Wire Fraud and POA Scenarios)

Closing day is the day you sign the final loan documents, deliver your cash to close, and — once the loan funds and the deed records — get the keys. You’ll review your Closing Disclosure at least three business days beforehand, do a final walk-through, bring a government photo ID and a cashier’s check or verified wire, and sign a stack of documents headlined by the promissory note and the deed of trust. In Colorado, closings typically fund the same day, so most buyers walk out with keys. The two things that actually derail closings are last-minute money surprises and wire fraud — and both are preventable. Here’s the honest walkthrough, including the scam every buyer needs to know about and what to do if you (or your spouse) can’t be in the room.

If you’re earlier in the process, our walkthrough of what happens after your offer is accepted covers the road that gets you here — inspection, appraisal, underwriting, clear to close. This article picks up at the finish line.

Three business days out: your Closing Disclosure

Before you sign anything, federal law puts a document in your hands: the Closing Disclosure. Under the CFPB’s TRID (“Know Before You Owe”) rules, your lender must give you the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before you close on the mortgage loan. It’s a five-page form showing your final loan terms, projected monthly payment, and every fee on the transaction.

Those three days exist so you can actually read it. Use them:

• Compare it to your Loan Estimate. Loan amount, rate, points, lender fees — line them up side by side. It’s the same skill you used when learning how to compare mortgage offers, just applied one last time. Some third-party costs can shift a bit; your core loan terms and lender charges shouldn’t move without an explanation.
• Check the cash-to-close figure. This is the exact amount you’ll bring. Your earnest money deposit shows up here as a credit, along with any seller concessions you negotiated.
• Verify the names, address, and loan type. Boring, yes. Also the cheapest possible time to catch a typo that would otherwise hold up recording.
• Ask questions now, not at the table. Your loan officer and the title company have three days to explain anything. On closing day, the notary can’t renegotiate your loan.

Our take: most buyers skim the Closing Disclosure in ninety seconds. The ones who read it for twenty minutes are the ones who close calmly. Be the second kind.

Closing day, step by step

Here’s the sequence, start to keys. A typical signing takes about an hour; the whole day, including funding and recording, usually wraps by afternoon — though timing varies by transaction, so confirm specifics with your title company.

1. Final walk-through. Usually within 24 hours of closing, you and your agent walk the property one last time. You’re confirming the home is in the agreed condition, negotiated repairs are done, and the seller hasn’t left behind a garage full of surprises. This is not a second inspection — it’s a verification.
2. Arrive at the title company. In El Paso County, most closings happen at a title company’s office, with a closer walking you through each document. Some closings use a mobile notary or a hybrid e-closing; your title company will tell you which.
3. Sign the stack. Expect a lot of signatures. The two documents that matter most: the promissory note (your written promise to repay the loan — the IOU) and the deed of trust (the security instrument that pledges the home as collateral, which is how Colorado does mortgages). You’ll also sign the Closing Disclosure again, occupancy affidavits, and a small forest of disclosures.
4. Deliver your cash to close. Cashier’s check or wire, per your title company’s instructions (much more on wires below).
5. Funding. The lender wires the loan funds to the title company. Colorado closings typically fund the same day — what the industry calls “wet funding” — rather than days later. Confirm timing with your title company, since every file is a little different.
6. Recording and keys. The title company records the deed with the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder. Once the loan has funded and the deed is recorded (or the title company is in a position to insure it), you get the keys. In most Colorado transactions, that’s the same day you sign.

What to bring to the closing table

• Government-issued photo ID — a driver’s license, passport, or military ID. The notary must verify you are you. Bring it even if you’ve met the closer five times.
• Your cash to close — as a cashier’s check payable per the title company’s instructions, or a wire sent in advance. Personal checks are generally not accepted for closing funds; Colorado’s good-funds rules mean the title company needs money it can actually disburse. Ask your title company which form they require and any dollar threshold above which they require a wire.
• Your Closing Disclosure — so you can compare the final numbers against what you reviewed three days ago.
• Your checkbook anyway — small last-minute adjustments (a per-diem interest tweak, a utility proration) sometimes get settled on the spot.
• Your spouse, if applicable — depending on your loan program and how you hold title, a non-borrowing spouse may need to sign certain documents on a primary residence; ask your closer ahead of time. If one of you can’t attend, read the power-of-attorney section below before closing week.

The boring secret to a calm closing is the same one that got you to closing: respond fast and change nothing. It’s what we call the two keys to a smooth mortgage, and they apply right up until the deed records — no new credit cards, no furniture financing, no moving money around unexplained, even in the final 72 hours.

Wire fraud: the scam aimed at your closing funds

This section is the reason to bookmark this article. Real estate wire fraud is a business-email-compromise scam, and it is built specifically for closing week.

Here’s how it works. Criminals compromise or spoof the email account of someone in your transaction — often a real estate agent or title company — and quietly watch the deal progress. Days or hours before closing, you receive an email that looks exactly like it came from your title company: same logo, same signature block, familiar deal details. It contains “updated” wiring instructions. Buyers who follow them wire their life savings directly to a criminal’s account, and the money is often unrecoverable within hours.

This is not rare. The CFPB says reports of these attempts rose 1,100 percent between 2015 and 2017, with an estimated loss of nearly $1 billion in real estate transaction costs in 2017 alone. The dollar figures involved (your entire down payment plus closing costs) make homebuyers among the juiciest wire-fraud targets anywhere.

The red flags

• Changed instructions. Any “updated,” “corrected,” or “revised” wiring instructions near closing. Legitimate title companies almost never change wire instructions mid-transaction. Treat a change as fraud until proven otherwise.
• Email-only urgency. Pressure to send funds immediately, communicated only by email or text.
• Look-alike senders. An email address one character off from the real one, or a reply-to that doesn’t match.
• New account details. A different bank, a different account holder name, or an account in another state.
• Requests for secrecy or instructions not to call the office to confirm.

The one habit that defeats it

Verify wiring instructions by phone, using a number you already trust — never a number from the email. Call the title company at the number printed on your contract or the one you saved when you first met them, read the account details back, and get verbal confirmation before your bank sends anything. The CFPB’s guidance says the same: identify trusted contacts early, confirm payment instructions verbally before wiring, and remember that email is never a secure way to send financial information. Thirty seconds on the phone protects a six-figure wire. There is no version of this transaction where that call is not worth making.

If money has already moved: act in minutes, not days.

1. Call your bank immediately and request a wire recall.
2. Call the title company (trusted number) so they can alert the receiving bank.
3. File a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Speed matters — recovery odds drop sharply after the first 24 to 72 hours.

Our take: we tell every 719 Lending client the same thing — assume any emailed wiring instructions are fake until a phone call proves otherwise. Nobody has ever regretted the phone call.

Signing by power of attorney: deployed and absent buyers

Colorado Springs is a military town, and closings here regularly happen while one buyer is at Fort Carson, Peterson, Schriever — or deployed on the other side of the planet. A power of attorney (POA) lets a trusted person (usually the spouse) sign closing documents on the absent buyer’s behalf. Done right, it’s routine. Sprung on your lender during closing week, it’s a delay machine.

• Use a specific (transaction-specific) POA where required. Lenders and title companies generally want a POA that identifies the exact property, and — for VA loans — the price and terms. A vague general POA may not be accepted for a real estate closing. Durable language (so it survives incapacity) is commonly expected as well.
• Get the POA approved in advance. Send the draft to your lender and the title company weeks before closing. Both must sign off on the form and execution requirements. This is the step people skip, and it’s the step that reschedules closings.
• VA loans have their own POA rules. If you’re using a VA loan in Colorado Springs, VA guidance generally requires the veteran’s written consent to the specifics of the transaction — the property, the price and terms, and the intent to occupy — and, per VA’s own certification form, the lender must certify it has written evidence that the veteran was alive and, if on active duty, not missing in action on a date after the note and security instruments were signed by the attorney-in-fact. For a deployed service member, that usually means an email from the veteran or a statement from the commanding officer, timed around closing. Details are program-specific — general, confirm current with your lender.
• Deployed buyers have extra tools. Military legal assistance offices (JAG) prepare real-estate POAs at no charge, and federal law allows certain military POAs to be notarized by military legal officers. Start there before paying a civilian attorney.

Our take: if there is any chance a buyer will be absent on closing day — deployment, TDY, a work trip you can’t move — raise the POA question with your lender at application, not at clear-to-close. It costs nothing to plan and a week of hotel living not to.

You have the keys — now what?

Congratulations — you’re a homeowner, and you’re about to learn how many people want to sell you a mailer that looks like a bill. Watch for official recorded documents to arrive by mail, keep every closing document in one folder (you’ll want the Closing Disclosure at tax time), and confirm where your first mortgage payment goes — it’s often due the first of the second month after closing, and your loan may be transferred to a servicer. After closing, start with our homeowner library — it covers your first payment, escrow, insurance, and everything else that comes after the champagne.

And if you’re still on the front end of this process, a local mortgage broker in Colorado Springs can walk you from pre-approval to closing table — we’ve sat at a few hundred of them.

Frequently asked questions

How long does closing day actually take? The signing itself usually runs 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Funding and recording happen behind the scenes afterward; in most Colorado transactions you sign, fund, and get keys the same day. Confirm timing with your title company, since lender funding cutoffs and county recording hours can push a late-afternoon signing’s keys to the next business day.

What if the numbers on my Closing Disclosure don’t match my Loan Estimate? Ask before you sign — that’s exactly what the three-business-day review window is for. Some third-party charges may change modestly, but core loan terms and lender fees are subject to federal tolerance rules under TRID. Certain major changes (like an APR increase beyond the allowed threshold or a loan-product change) trigger a new three-business-day review period.

Can I pay my cash to close with a personal check? Generally no. Title companies operate under good-funds requirements and need money they can disburse at the table — a cashier’s check or a bank wire. Ask your title company which they require and at what dollar amount a wire becomes mandatory.

How do I know wiring instructions are legitimate? Call the title company at a phone number you already had — from your contract or your first meeting, never from the email — and verbally confirm the account details before wiring. Treat any last-minute “updated instructions” as fraud until that call proves otherwise. If you’ve already sent money to a bad account, call your bank for a wire recall immediately and file a report with the FBI at ic3.gov.

Can my spouse close without me if I’m deployed? Usually yes, with a power of attorney your lender and title company approve in advance — typically a specific, durable POA naming the property. VA loans add their own requirements, including evidence the veteran consented to the transaction and was alive (and not missing in action) after documents were signed. Get the POA drafted and lender-approved weeks ahead; base legal assistance offices prepare them free.

719 Lending, NMLS #1601989. Equal Housing Opportunity. This article is educational only and is not financial or legal advice; program details and figures are general — confirm current. 719 Lending is not affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency. Last updated: July 2026.