The short version
- The pre-printed contingency periods in the California Residential Purchase Agreement are not expiration dates. A contingency does not fall away when the calendar passes it.
- A buyer’s contingency ends one of two ways: the buyer signs a written removal, or the seller serves a Notice to Buyer to Perform and then cancels.
- The pre-printed defaults are 17 days for investigation and appraisal and 21 days for loan. Those blanks get filled in differently on most offers. Read the contract, not the default.
- Freddie Mac put the 30-year average at 6.95% on September 17, 2026, up 19 basis points in a week and the highest in a year. A live loan contingency is worth more to a buyer this month than it was last month.
- If you are the listing agent and you believe a contingency lapsed on its own, you have no leverage and no right to cancel. You have a calendar entry.
Who this is for
San Diego County listing agents, and buyer’s agents who want to understand what the other side is actually holding. This is the lender’s-seat view of a contract mechanic that I watch cost people money four or five times a year.
The belief that causes the problem
A very common assumption, and I hear it from experienced agents: that contingencies in the California RPA expire. Day 17 arrives, the investigation contingency is gone. Day 21 arrives, the loan contingency is gone. The deal hardens on its own, like concrete.
That is not how the form works. California uses active contingency removal. The contingency survives its own deadline. It keeps surviving until the buyer delivers a signed removal in writing, or until the seller takes a specific procedural step to force the issue. The passage of time does not remove anything. It only changes who is allowed to act.
What the deadline actually buys the seller is the right to serve a Notice to Buyer to Perform. That notice gives the buyer a short window, generally two days, to either remove the contingency or cancel. Only after that window closes without a response does the seller have a clean right to cancel. Until the notice is served, the buyer sits on a live contingency and a refundable deposit for as long as the seller lets them.
Why it matters more this week than it did in August
Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed average at 6.95% on September 17, 2026, up from 6.76% the week before. That is a 19 basis point move in seven days and the highest weekly average in about a year. The 15-year average moved to 6.26% from 6.09%.
Those are national survey averages on conventional, conforming loans with 20% down and strong credit. They are not offers, and nobody’s actual pricing is going to match them. But the direction is the point. When the market moves against a buyer mid-escrow, a live loan contingency stops being paperwork and starts being an option with real value. A buyer who has not removed on day 24 is holding a free look at a market that just repriced.
Meanwhile San Diego County is sitting at roughly 6,400 active listings and about 3.2 months of supply, the most inventory since 2019, with median days on market in the high twenties. Sellers have less ability to shrug and go back on the market than they did two years ago. Serving the notice on time is worth more now.
What actually ends each contingency
| Contingency | Pre-printed default | What the date actually does | What ends it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investigation | 17 days | Opens the seller’s right to serve a Notice to Buyer to Perform | Signed written removal, or cancellation after the notice period runs |
| Appraisal | 17 days | Same | Same. A low appraisal does not end it either — somebody still has to paper it |
| Loan | 21 days | Same | Signed written removal. The lender cannot remove it and neither can escrow |
One more time, because this is the part that gets skipped: the blanks on the form get filled in. Fourteen days, ten days, seven days on a competitive offer. The pre-printed number is a default, not a rule. When I am asked to hold a rate to a contingency date, the first thing I ask for is the actual page, not somebody’s memory of the standard.
The lender-side reality nobody puts in the contract
Agents sometimes ask me to confirm that a buyer is ready to remove the loan contingency. I can tell you where a file stands. I can tell you which conditions underwriting has signed off on, whether the appraisal is in and reviewed, whether income documentation is complete, whether the title work raised anything. That is a real answer and it is usually enough to make a decision with.
What I cannot tell you is that the loan will fund. No honest person in my seat can. A file that looks clean on day 18 can pick up a new condition on day 25 because an underwriter pulled a fresh credit report, or a business bank statement showed a large deposit, or a verification of employment came back with a changed start date. The removal decision is the buyer’s, made with their agent, with real information about the file — not a promise from me.
This is also why the deal-failure window sits so late. I wrote about that pattern in why San Diego deals fall apart in the last ten days, and contingency timing is the quiet cause under half of it.
When you should not push for removal
I am going to name the option I would tell you not to take. If a buyer’s file still has open underwriting conditions, do not push them to remove the loan contingency to keep a seller comfortable. Removal puts their deposit at risk. If the loan then does not come together, you have converted a clean cancellation into a fight over money, and you have done it to buy a few days of goodwill.
The better move on the listing side is procedural, not emotional. Serve the notice. It is not hostile, it is the mechanism the form gives you, and it produces an answer in two days instead of two weeks of check-in calls. Buyers’ agents generally respect it, because it is clear.
And on an appraisal problem, the removal question and the value question are separate. A reconsideration of value has its own timeline and its own evidence standard, which I covered in low appraisals and reconsideration of value in San Diego. Do not let a pending ROV drift past the notice date without a conversation about extending in writing.
A note on rate locks and contingency dates
These two calendars are not the same calendar, and treating them as one is expensive. A lock has an expiration and an extension cost. A contingency has a removal date and a notice mechanism. When a contingency period gets extended by mutual agreement, the lock does not extend itself, and extensions get priced off the market on the day you ask for them — which, in a week like this one, is not the market you locked in. I walked through the mechanics in what a rate lock actually protects.
Questions I get from agents
If the buyer blows the date and I never serve the notice, can I just cancel?
No. The right to cancel comes after the notice period runs. Cancelling without it is how a seller ends up in a deposit dispute they should have won.
Does a verbal or email removal count?
Treat it as if it does not. The form contemplates a signed written removal. Anything else is an argument waiting to happen.
Can the buyer remove the loan contingency and still have a financing problem?
Yes, and that is exactly the risk they are accepting. Removal is a statement about willingness to proceed and put the deposit at stake. It is not a statement that the loan is done.
Should I ask the buyer’s lender to confirm the file before I accept a removal?
Ask, yes. Expect a status, not a guarantee. If a lender offers you a guarantee, that tells you something about the lender.
Do the defaults ever change?
The C.A.R. forms get revised. The habit worth building is reading the executed contract on every deal rather than carrying last year’s numbers in your head.
Where I fit
If you list in San Diego County and you want a lender who will give your seller a straight status on a buyer’s file — conditions cleared, appraisal in, what is still open — rather than a cheerful non-answer, that is the part of the job I actually enjoy. It makes your contingency decisions better and it makes your escrows shorter.
Book a partnership call and we can walk through how I report file status to listing agents, and what I need from you to do it fast. You can also point buyers to my online application if you want a file started before an offer goes out.
More for agents on the blog.
Ron Berg is a mortgage loan originator with The Berg Group, powered by C2 Financial Corporation, serving San Diego County and California. NMLS #974839. C2 Financial Corporation NMLS #135622. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Rate figures cited are national weekly averages published by Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week of September 17, 2026, and are not an offer, quote, or commitment to lend. Contract mechanics described here are general information about standard California Association of Realtors forms and are not legal advice. Read your executed contract and consult your broker or counsel on any specific transaction.
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