Almost every deal that dies in escrow dies on a date somebody had written down. The contract was fine. The inspection was fine. What failed was a calendar.
The C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement puts most of its timing in one grid near the front of the form, and then spreads the consequences of that timing across the next fifteen pages. This guide flattens it: what is due, on which day, counted from what, and what actually happens when the day passes.
One thing to fix before anything else, because it is the single most expensive misunderstanding in California residential real estate: contingencies in California do not expire. They are removed. Actively, in writing, by the buyer. Day 18 arrives and the 17-day investigation contingency is still fully alive — the seller has simply earned the right to start pushing. Agents who came from states with automatic expiration get this backwards, and it costs them.
Run your dates
Enter the acceptance date. Defaults shown are the standard RPA timeframes — your contract's grid overrides all of them.
Calendar days, counted from the day after acceptance. Weekend and holiday treatment varies by item — verify against your executed contract.
What starts the clock
Acceptance. Not the day the offer was written, not the day the seller signed it — the day the fully signed acceptance is delivered back to the offering party. Everything downstream counts from there, and the acceptance date itself is day zero. A contract accepted on the 1st has its 17-day items due on the 18th.
This is where a surprising number of files go wrong at the very start. If the acceptance date on the file is off by a day, every deadline in the transaction is off by a day, and nobody discovers it until a Notice to Buyer to Perform shows up.
The six clocks
| Default | What is due | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3 days | Initial deposit to escrow | Wire, not intent to wire. Escrow receipt is the proof. |
| 7 days | Seller delivers disclosures | TDS, SPQ, and the statutory package. A seller obligation, not a buyer one. |
| 17 days | Investigation contingency | Physical inspections, pest, sewer, roof, and everything not carved out as its own contingency. |
| 17 days | Appraisal contingency | Independent of the loan contingency since the 12/21 rewrite. |
| 17 days | Review of seller documents | A standalone contingency, not part of investigation. Easy to miss. |
| 17 days or 5 after delivery |
Title and preliminary report | Whichever is later — so a late prelim extends this one and nothing else. |
| 21 days | Loan contingency | The long pole. Four days behind everything else by design. |
Every one of those numbers lives in a blank on the form and every one is negotiable. In a competitive spring you will see 7 and 10 routinely, and occasionally zero. The defaults matter anyway, because they are what fills in when nobody writes anything, and because they are the shape agents carry in their heads when they are moving fast.
The trap in the 17s. Investigation, appraisal, review of seller documents, and title all default to the same day. That reads like one deadline and it is four. A single Contingency Removal signed for "the inspection" removes exactly one of them, and the other three sit there, live, while both sides believe the file is clean.
Day 17 to 21: the removal window
Removal happens on the Contingency Removal form, and it is specific. Each contingency gets its own removal. Partial removal is normal and often correct — a buyer who is satisfied on inspection but still waiting on underwriting removes investigation and holds the loan contingency, and that is exactly how the form is designed to be used.
The consequence of removal is what makes the sequencing matter. Once the contingencies are gone, the deposit is exposed. A buyer who removes everything on day 17 and then loses financing on day 25 is no longer a buyer with a right to cancel — they are a buyer arguing about liquidated damages. This is why the loan contingency defaults four days later than the rest, and why removing it early to look strong is a decision with a dollar figure attached.
When the day passes: NBP
The deadline lapses. Nothing happens. This is the part that surprises people.
What the seller gets is standing to serve a Notice to Buyer to Perform, and the NBP has its own rules. It gives at least two days after delivery. The day it is served does not count. It cannot be delivered more than two days before the underlying deadline, so a seller cannot pre-load it. And it does not cancel anything — it starts the clock that gives the seller the right to cancel, if the buyer still does nothing.
Practically, an NBP in a transaction is a signal that communication broke down somewhere around day 15. It is a recoverable event and a bad one, and it is almost always preventable with two days of notice on a calendar.
The other two notices
The Notice to Seller to Perform runs on the same two-day mechanics, pointed the other direction — most often at a disclosure package that never arrived. The Demand to Close Escrow gives three days rather than two, and can be served starting a few days before the scheduled close. Different form, different count, same failure mode: someone assumed the number.
The stretch nobody calendars
Between contingency removal and close of escrow there is usually a week or two that no contingency governs, and that is where the quiet failures live. Loan documents arriving at escrow later than promised. A final walkthrough scheduled after the signing appointment instead of before it. Wiring instructions confirmed by phone on the morning of recording instead of two days earlier. None of these are contract deadlines. All of them delay a close.
If you are building your own tracking, the discipline that pays is to put the non-contract dates on the same calendar as the contract ones. The contract tells you when you are in breach. It does not tell you when you are in trouble.
On form versions
C.A.R. revises its forms twice a year, in June and December, and paragraph numbering moves between revisions — the December 2025 release in particular restructured the flow of the agreement. C.A.R. no longer monitors the legal validity of superseded versions, and the User Protection Agreement covers only the current one.
The day-counts above are the standing defaults and have been stable across recent revisions. Paragraph references, if you are citing them in a file, should be confirmed against the specific revision printed at the foot of the contract you actually signed.
Common questions
How many days is the appraisal contingency in California?
17 days after acceptance by default. It is separate from the loan contingency, which defaults to 21, so removing the loan contingency does not remove the appraisal one. Both are negotiable and the grid on your contract controls.
Do contingencies expire automatically if the buyer does nothing?
No. California uses active written removal. The contingency stays alive past its date until it is removed on the Contingency Removal form. Passing the deadline gives the seller the right to serve a Notice to Buyer to Perform — it does not remove anything.
How long does the seller have to deliver disclosures?
7 days after acceptance by default for the TDS, SPQ, and statutory package. This one matters more than it looks: the buyer's review of seller documents is its own contingency with its own clock, so a late package creates a timing problem for both sides.
When is the earnest money deposit due?
3 days after acceptance by default, and what counts is funds received by escrow, not funds sent. The business-day treatment of this one has shifted across form revisions, so check the version you signed.
How much time does a Notice to Buyer to Perform actually give?
At least two days after delivery, with the day of service not counted, and it cannot be delivered more than two days before the underlying deadline. The Demand to Close Escrow gives three days instead of two.
Do weekends and holidays extend these deadlines?
Timeframes are counted in calendar days, but certain performance dates roll forward when they land on a weekend or legal holiday. The treatment is not uniform across every item in the agreement, which is exactly the kind of edge case worth checking against the contract rather than assuming.