Working With a Transaction Coordinator
Why this matters
On a busy agent's deals, the person who emails you about the repair is often not the agent. It is the transaction coordinator, usually called the TC: the administrator who runs the paperwork and the calendar of a home sale from accepted offer to closing. A good TC is the most useful person in the deal for a trade shop, because they know every date and they chase everyone. They are also the person shops most often mistake for the customer. A TC can tell you when, where and how; they usually cannot tell you yes. This is how to work each contact point with a TC so your job lands on time, gets paid out of closing, and never turns on an approval that nobody with authority gave.
What a TC is, and is not
A TC tracks the contract's deadlines, collects documents from the lender, title or escrow company, inspectors and vendors, schedules access, and keeps both agents informed. Some are employees of a brokerage. Many are independent and work files for several agents at once, often 20 or more open deals at a time. There may be two on one deal, one for the buyer's side and one for the seller's.
What they are not, in the usual case:
- Not a party to the contract. The buyer and seller are. The TC cannot commit either one to spend money.
- Not the negotiator. In many states negotiating terms is licensed activity, and some states require a TC to hold a real estate license to perform certain tasks while others do not. Either way, the decision on what gets repaired and who pays belongs to the parties, through their agents.
- Not neutral. A TC works for one side. Anything you send them may be forwarded to the other side's agent, the lender or the title company. Write every email as if a buyer's attorney may read it later, because the file is where they would look.
Contact 1: intake, when the TC first calls
Get six things on the job record before you quote anything:
- Which side the TC works for, and the agent's name.
- Who decides: the client who will sign the approval. Usually the seller, for a seller-paid repair.
- The dates that bind you: when the repair must be finished and when proof is due, and the closing date. Ask for the date and time in writing. A sibling owns how those windows fit together. See related: How a Home Sale Timeline Works for the Trades.
- The document your work answers to: the inspection report item, the signed repair addendum or the appraisal condition, by number.
- Access: occupied or vacant, lockbox, showing restrictions.
- Who pays and how: paid at closing through escrow or title, or paid directly.
Why first. Every later contact uses these six. A shop that quotes before knowing which document governs ends up quoting the inspector's wording when the addendum, which is the only thing the seller agreed to, says something narrower.
What breaks if you skip it. You quote the whole inspection item, the addendum agreed to only part of it, and the extra is unpaid.
Contact 2: the quote, written for the file
Send the quote to the decision-maker, copying the TC and the agent. Put in it the property address, the client's name, each line tied to the addendum or report item number, a validity date that runs past the closing date, the payment terms, and your license number where your trade is licensed.
Why. The TC will drop your quote into the transaction file and forward it to the other side. A quote that cites the addendum item numbers lets everyone check that the repair matches what was agreed without calling you. A sibling owns the quoting itself. See related: Quoting a Repair Request Under a Closing Deadline.
Contact 3: the approval, from the person who can give it
The approval is the decision-maker's signature or written yes on your quote, not the TC's email saying the seller is fine with it. Ask the TC to get the client's signature back, or send the quote for signature yourself.
Why. If the seller later disputes an item, "the TC told me to go ahead" is a dispute about authority you will lose time on even if you eventually win it. A signature on the quote is a dated record of what the client agreed to pay for. Whether a coordinator's email could ever bind a seller is a question for an attorney, not a risk to run on a closing deadline.
What breaks if you skip it. See the worked case below.
Contact 4: scheduling, and every change
Give the TC a date for the work and a date the proof will be in hand, and send an update whenever either one moves. Commit to a standard: an update the same business day anything changes, and a completion note the day the work is done. A TC managing two dozen files will not ask; they will assume silence means on schedule.
Keep updates short and in the same shape each time, so they can be read in a phone notification and pasted into the file:
To: TC, seller's agent
Re: 412 Linden Ct - repair addendum items 3, 5, 6
Status: Item 5 delayed. Valve on order, arrives
Thu. Items 3 and 6 complete today, photos
attached.
New completion: Fri the 22nd.
Proof package to you: Fri the 22nd by 5 pm.
Repairs due per addendum: Wed the 27th.
Nothing needed from you. Will confirm Friday.
Why. The update carries the binding date next to your new date, so the TC sees the margin without opening the contract. It names the items by addendum number, so it can go straight into the file, and it says plainly whether the TC has to do anything.
Contact 5: the proof package
When the work is done, send the TC one package: the invoice tied to the item numbers, before-and-after photos, any permit and its status, your workmanship warranty terms, and a conditional lien waiver if your state uses one, conditional on payment at closing. The TC routes these to the other side's agent and to escrow.
Why one package. A TC assembling a file wants one email they can forward, not five attachments over three days. And the escrow or title officer needs the invoice and the payee details early, before the closing statement is drawn, or your payment will not be on it. A sibling owns the payment side of closing. See related: Getting Paid at Closing Without Getting Stuck.
Contact 6: after closing
Confirm with the TC that the deal closed and your payment was disbursed, and when the funds arrive, send the final unconditional lien waiver if your state requires one. Then close the job. A TC who got a clean file from you is the one who will put your number in front of the next agent.
When the TC goes quiet
A TC with two dozen files triages, and a vendor email that does not mention a deadline sinks. Two rules keep you out of that hole.
- Put the binding date in the subject line of anything that needs an answer: "Reply needed by Tue - affects day 27 repair deadline". It is the one thing that moves your email up their list.
- Escalate after one business day. If a question that touches a binding date has no reply by the end of the next business day, call the agent directly and copy the TC on a short written summary. That is not going around the TC; it is what the TC would want, because a missed date lands on their file too.
Silence after a scheduled job can also mean the deal is wobbling. If the TC stops answering and the agent is vague about the closing date, hold any work you have not started and get the decision-maker's written confirmation before you spend more. See related: The Sale Fell Through After the Work Was Done.
A worked case: the item nobody signed for
A seller-side TC calls a plumbing shop. On this deal, contract day N falls on the Nth of the month. Closing is day 30 of the contract. The repair addendum, signed on day 12, commits the seller to three plumbing items (3, 5 and 6 on the buyer's inspection report) with repairs complete and receipts provided to the buyer no later than 3 days before closing, which is day 27.
Intake. The shop records the seller as decision-maker, day 27 as the binding date, the addendum as the governing document, the house as occupied with a lockbox, and payment at closing through the title company.
Quote and approval. The quote lists items 3, 5 and 6 by number. The seller signs it on day 14.
On site, day 18. The tech finds the main shutoff valve, which is not on the addendum, seized and weeping. Item 5 also needs a valve that is not on the truck, so it is ordered for Thursday the 21st. The tech calls the TC about the main shutoff. The TC replies by email: "Seller is fine with it, go ahead." The tech replaces it.
The update. The shop sends the status email above the same afternoon: item 5 moves to the 22nd, proof package the 22nd, against a binding date of the 27th. The margin is 27 minus 22, which is 5 days.
The package, day 22. Items 3, 5 and 6 are done and documented, plus a fourth line for the main shutoff.
Day 26. The seller sees the closing statement and objects to the fourth line. They had told the TC they would "probably" want the valve done, and assumed they would get a price first. The title company will not pay a vendor line the seller disputes. Items 3, 5 and 6 are paid at closing on day 30. The main-shutoff line is cut from the statement and becomes a collection matter with a seller who has just moved out of state.
What would have prevented it. One step: a written change order for the main shutoff, sent to the seller for signature before the valve was replaced. It would have cost an hour of waiting, or a return trip within the 5 days of margin the shop already had. The TC was helpful and acting in good faith; she simply was not the person who could say yes.
What changes the answer. If the valve had been actively leaking into the basement rather than weeping, the tech would have shut off the water at the curb stop, told the occupant and the TC at once, and treated it as an emergency to stop, document and report, not a quiet upgrade. The emergency call goes to the occupant and the agent, and the repair is still quoted and approved before it is done.
References
- The signed repair addendum and the purchase contract dates, through the agent or the TC, which set the scope and the deadlines
- Your state's mechanics' lien statute, for whether conditional and unconditional lien waivers are used and in what form
- See related: How a Home Sale Timeline Works for the Trades
- See related: Quoting a Repair Request Under a Closing Deadline
- See related: Getting Paid at Closing Without Getting Stuck