7 Things to Verify Before Accepting a Cash Offer on a California House
Cash offers close fast, but the speed only helps if the buyer is real, funded, and using California paperwork. Here is the seven-point check a homeowner can run in an afternoon, with the public records to use for each.
By the research desk at Sell My House Fast In CA
California homeowners now hear from cash buyers by postcard, text, and cold call within days of a probate filing, a notice of default, or a listing that expired. Most of those buyers are legitimate. Some are wholesalers who never intend to close themselves, and a few are not who they say they are. The seller cannot tell them apart from the offer letter. They can tell them apart from the public record.
Below are seven checks, in the order a seller should run them. Each one takes minutes and uses a free California source.
1. Look up the license, or confirm there is not one and why
In California, a company or person buying property for its own account does not need a real estate license. A person negotiating a sale on someone else’s behalf does. So the question is not “are you licensed” but “in what capacity are you acting.”
Ask the buyer directly, then check the answer at the Department of Real Estate’s public license lookup (dre.ca.gov, “Verify a License”). If the buyer says they are licensed, the record should show the name, license number, status, and any disciplinary history. If the buyer says they are unlicensed and buying as a principal, that is allowed, and item 2 becomes the check that matters.
A buyer who claims a license that does not appear in the lookup has already failed the test.
2. Confirm the company exists and is in good standing
Every LLC and corporation doing business in California is on file with the Secretary of State. Search the exact entity name on the purchase agreement at bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov. You are looking for three things: the entity is Active (not Suspended or FTB Suspended), the filing date is old enough to match the company’s story about itself, and the name on the record matches the name on the offer to the letter.
A suspended entity cannot legally enforce a contract in California, which means a suspended buyer can walk away from your deal while you cannot hold them to it. A company whose website says it has operated for a decade but whose entity was formed last spring is not necessarily lying, but it deserves a question.
3. Get proof of funds that matches the offer
A cash offer is only cash if the money exists today. Ask for a bank or brokerage statement, dated within the last 30 days, showing liquid funds at or above the offer price, in the name of the entity that signed the offer. A “proof of funds letter” from a hard-money lender is a loan commitment, not cash, and a statement in the name of an unrelated LLC or an individual who is not the buyer proves nothing about this transaction.
Redacted account numbers are normal. A redacted balance, a redacted date, or a redacted account holder is not.
4. Insist on the California purchase agreement
Nearly every real-estate sale in California is written on the California Association of Realtors’ Residential Purchase Agreement (form RPA-CA) or a functionally equivalent state-specific contract. The form builds in the protections a seller needs: defined contingency periods, a defined close of escrow, liquidated damages, and the “as-is” language that lets a seller decline repairs while still meeting state disclosure law.
Some out-of-state buyers arrive with a two-page contract written for another state, or a wholesaler’s “assignment-friendly” agreement designed to let them sell the contract to a third party before closing. Neither is illegal. Both shift risk onto the seller. Ask that the offer be rewritten on the California form, and ask whether the buyer may assign the contract. If the answer is yes, ask to whom, and run items 2 and 3 on that party as well.
5. Know who picks escrow and title, and what it costs
In a California cash sale there is no lender, so escrow and title are the only neutral parties in the room. The seller has a say in choosing them; a buyer who insists on a specific escrow company as a condition of the deal should explain why. Independent escrow companies are licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and can be checked there, and title companies are regulated by the Department of Insurance.
Escrow and title fees are negotiable and vary by county. Ask for an estimated seller net sheet before signing, not after. Every legitimate buyer can produce one.
6. Ask who pays the transfer tax, in writing
California counties charge a documentary transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 of price, and a number of cities add their own on top. As of September 2026, the city surcharge runs from zero in most of the state to several dollars per $1,000 in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and other charter cities, and Los Angeles’ Measure ULA adds a further tier on sales above a threshold that adjusts each year. No state law fixes who pays. It is negotiated in escrow, and by custom it varies by county.
On a $600,000 sale in a city with a high surcharge, this single line item can be thousands of dollars. The purchase agreement should say who pays it. If it does not, assume the buyer expects you to.
7. Understand that “as-is” does not mean “no disclosures”
Selling as-is in California means you will not make repairs. It does not remove the seller’s legal duty to disclose known material facts. The Transfer Disclosure Statement (Civil Code section 1102), the Natural Hazard Disclosure, the Seller Property Questionnaire, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and a strapped water heater are required in a cash sale just as they are in a financed one, unless a specific statutory exemption applies (some probate and trust sales, for example, are exempt from the TDS).
A buyer who tells you disclosures are unnecessary because they are paying cash is either misinformed or hoping you are. A reputable buyer will hand you the forms and expect them back completed.
Where a seller can start
The seven checks above apply to any cash buyer, local or national. Sell My House Fast In CA publishes verified research on California’s cash home buying market, including city-by-city guides to what a sale actually costs in each place, at Sell My House Fast In CA. Sellers outside California, or with an inherited property in another state, can request an as-is offer from the national buyer Simple Home Offers.
Disclosure: Sell My House Fast In CA and Simple Home Offers are both operated by Realty Helpers LLC, a California-registered direct cash buyer. The checks in this article apply to Realty Helpers LLC’s own offers exactly as they apply to any other buyer’s, and sellers are encouraged to run them.
About Sell My House Fast In CA
Sell My House Fast In CA helps California homeowners sell quickly and safely by publishing verified research on the state’s cash home buying industry, written by a licensed California agent with 100+ transactions since 2012.