How to Verify a Cash Home Buyer Before You Sign Anything

Verified means you confirmed it, not that they told you. A polished website and a confident person on the phone are things the buyer controls. Verification uses sources the buyer does not control: the bank, the state's business registry, the county's recorded deeds, and a title company you called yourself.

Four facts have to hold. The entity exists: the name on the contract is a real, active company or a real person, and the principal matches who you are dealing with. The money exists: a bank, not the buyer, has confirmed the funds. The deposit is at risk: real earnest money sits with a neutral third party and becomes non-refundable after a short window. The signer is the closer: the buyer intends to own your house, not to resell the right to buy it.

The seven checks, in order:

1. Bank statement or bank letter dated within 30 days, showing liquid funds at or above your price.
2. A call to that bank at its public number, never the number printed on the letter.
3. Reviews and complaint history under the company's exact name.
4. State business registry (Sunbiz in Florida) plus the county's recorded deeds.
5. License lookup, only if the buyer claims to be licensed.
6. Earnest money in escrow with a title company you have called yourself.
7. The assignment question, asked out loud and checked in the contract.

Ask for a bank statement or bank letter dated within the last 30 days showing liquid funds at or above your price, then call the bank yourself to confirm it. Those are checks one and two, and they matter more than the other five combined, because a buyer without money cannot close no matter how honest they are.

What counts as proof of funds: a recent statement from a bank or brokerage showing cash or cash equivalents, with the account holder's name matching the entity on the contract, or a letter on the bank's letterhead stating that funds are available. What does not count: a photo of a phone screen, a cropped screenshot, a 'pre-approval' from a hard-money lender with no commitment attached, or a statement dated in March for a contract signed in August. Redacted account numbers are normal. A redacted name or date is not. If the money is coming from a lender or partner rather than the buyer's own account, ask for that party's commitment letter and run the same call on them.

Then make the call, and make it to the bank's public number: the one on the bank's own website, never the number printed on the letter the buyer handed you, because a fake letter arrives with a fake number attached. The Florida Attorney General gives the same advice for verifying a check: get the bank's phone number from a source you know and trust, not from the person who gave you the document (Florida Attorney General: overpayment scams). Give the account holder's name and the letter's date and ask whether the bank issued it. Many banks will confirm that much even though they will not discuss balances with a stranger. A buyer who objects to the call, or offers to 'connect you with their banker' instead, has answered your question.

Reviews tell you how the buyer behaves; public records tell you whether the buyer exists and has actually closed. Check three is reputation: search the company's exact name with 'reviews' and 'complaints', read the Google reviews and the Better Business Bureau profile, and weigh any pattern of retrading (renegotiating the price after the contract is signed), missed closings, or deposits that never arrived. No footprint at all is not disqualifying, since plenty of small investors buy quietly, but it moves more weight onto the next check.

Check four is the registry. In Florida, search the exact entity name from the contract on Sunbiz, the Division of Corporations' records search; the entity-name search also lets you look up by officer or registered agent. You want four things: status Active, the filing date, the principals, and the registered agent. Then match a principal's name to the person you are dealing with. An LLC formed three weeks ago is not disqualifying on its own, because investors often create a new entity per project or per year. A name that does not exist, or an entity listed as inactive or dissolved, is. Outside Florida, use your Secretary of State's business search.

The registry proves existence, not track record. For track record, search the same company name in your county clerk's official-records portal, where every recorded deed is indexed by party name. A buyer that has actually closed purchases appears as the grantee on recorded deeds; a buyer that has only ever put houses under contract appears nowhere, or only on memoranda of contract and assignments. In Florida each county's clerk or county recorder runs its own official-records portal, and most allow a free party-name search. Five minutes there tells you whether 'we've bought hundreds of houses' is a fact or a slogan.

Generally, no. A person or company buying property for its own account needs no real estate license in Florida, so 'unlicensed' by itself is not a red flag; it is the norm. Licensing governs brokering someone else's transaction, not buying for yourself, which is why there is no state roster of cash buyers. Our guide to cash home buyers in Florida explains why the pool is so large and varied.

Check five applies only when the buyer claims a credential. If they say they are a licensed agent, broker, or brokerage, or the paperwork arrives on a brokerage's forms, look the name up on the Florida DBPR license search and confirm the license is current and belongs to the person in front of you. A claimed license that does not exist is a bigger problem than no license at all, because it means the buyer is already lying to you. Rules differ by state; some regulate wholesalers or investor buyers more tightly than Florida does, so check your own state's real estate commission if you are selling elsewhere.

Enough to hurt, held by someone who is not the buyer. Check six is the deposit: a real cash buyer puts meaningful earnest money into escrow with a licensed title company or closing attorney within a day or two of signing, and the deposit becomes non-refundable once a short inspection window closes. Amounts vary by market and state, but 1 to 2 percent of the price is common on a cash offer, or a flat amount in the low thousands on lower-priced houses. Zero deposit 'because we close so fast' means the buyer has nothing at risk and can walk for free.

Where the deposit sits matters as much as how big it is. It should never be held by the buyer, the buyer's company, or a 'servicing partner' you have never heard of. Ask which title company or attorney will hold escrow and close the sale, then call that office directly at a number from its own website and confirm it has the contract and the deposit. That one call catches the fake title company, the deposit that was promised but never sent, and the buyer whose real closing plan differs from the one you were told. Get the escrow receipt in writing.

One variant to recognize on sight: a buyer who sends a check or wire for more than the agreed amount and asks you to refund the difference. That is the overpayment scam the Florida Attorney General warns about. The original payment is reversed after your refund clears, and you are out the money. Legitimate closing funds move through the title company's escrow account, and no real buyer needs you to send money back.

Ask, in those words: 'Are you closing on this yourself, or assigning the contract to someone else?' Check seven is the assignment question, and it separates an end buyer, who will own your house, from a wholesaler, who intends to sell the right to buy it to someone who will. Wholesaling is legal in Florida and most states, and a transparent wholesaler with a real end buyer lined up can close. The problem is concealment: a wholesaler who has not found a buyer yet is holding a free option on your house while you wait.

The answer shows up in three places whether or not they say it out loud. The buyer's name on the contract followed by 'and/or assigns' means the right to assign is written in. An inspection period of 21 to 30 days with a fully refundable deposit means they can walk for any reason, which is exactly the window a wholesaler needs to shop your contract. And repeated tours by 'partners' or 'contractors' usually means showings to prospective end buyers. If you are fine with assignment, price it: a shorter window, a deposit that goes hard early, and a clause requiring any assignee to be disclosed before closing.

Like a boring, ordinary sale. A licensed title company or closing attorney runs the closing. Your mortgage and any liens are paid from the proceeds at the closing table, itemized on the settlement statement you receive before you sign. You sign the deed at closing, in front of a notary, and nowhere else: not at the kitchen table 'to save time', not before the money is in escrow, and never in exchange for a promise of payment later. Our day-by-day timeline of a cash home sale shows what each step looks like.

Two closing-day rules protect the money itself. First, treat any wiring instructions as unverified until you have called the title company at the number on its own website, not the number in the email, and confirmed them. Scammers impersonate title and escrow companies; the Florida Attorney General's guidance is to call the numbers on the original closing documents and double-check any message asking for a change (Florida Attorney General: real estate scams), and the CFPB puts it more bluntly: never follow instructions contained in an email (CFPB: mortgage closing scams). Second, never pay the buyer anything, before or after closing, for any reason.

If you are behind on the mortgage, Florida adds a statutory backstop. If a foreclosure lis pendens has been recorded against your house, Fla. Stat. § 501.1377 gives you a non-waivable 3-business-day cancellation right on any rescue-type agreement or equity-purchase deal where you keep an interest in the property — it does not apply to an ordinary sale closed through a title company. Any 'rescue' built on deeding the house to someone while you stay in it as a tenant, or on paying a fee up front, is the transaction that statute was written for. Our page on cash buyers when you're facing foreclosure covers the clean alternative: a real sale that pays the lender off.

Walk away. There is no check on this list that a legitimate buyer cannot pass within a business day, so a buyer who cannot, or who argues about why they should not have to, has given you the answer the check was designed to get. You do not need to diagnose whether it is a scam, an overreaching wholesaler, or a well-meaning operator who is out of cash. The result is the same, and the house is still yours.

The structural fix is to never run these checks on one buyer at a time. Nearly every bad outcome in the 'we buy houses' world depends on a seller negotiating with a single buyer in an information vacuum: one proof of funds, one price with nothing to compare it to, one deposit to wait on. Competing written offers remove the vacuum. When several verified buyers bid on the same house, the low offer becomes visible instead of persuasive, the retrade gets rarer because a backup exists, and the buyer who cannot produce a bank letter loses to the one who can. Our guides on whether 'we buy houses' companies are legit and on common 'we buy houses' scams cover the patterns; the seven checks above confirm the buyer in front of you is not one of them.