The California Purchase Agreement, Explained for Buyers

What the C.A.R. Form RPA actually is

The California Residential Purchase Agreement and Joint Escrow Instructions, C.A.R. Form RPA, is the 16-page standard form most California home offers are written on. It's three documents in one: your written offer, the binding contract once the seller signs and delivers acceptance, and joint instructions to the escrow holder. The current generation is dated 12/21 and was revised 12/22.

That last part surprises people. You're not signing a cover letter that leads to a contract later. The moment signed acceptance is delivered back, the RPA is the deal: price, deadlines, contingencies, who pays which fee, all of it. Paragraph 32C even has you acknowledge that you've read all 16 pages, and you initial every page along the way.

This guide is the buyer's walking tour: what each box you'll actually fill means, where the printed defaults sit, and how a buyer without an agent lawfully gets a usable contract in the first place. It's one chapter of the bigger guide to buying a California home without an agent.

One form, three jobs

Job one, it's your offer: you fill in terms, sign, and send. Job two, it becomes the binding contract the moment the seller signs and acceptance is delivered back inside the offer window. Job three, it doubles as joint escrow instructions, which is why escrow can open a file straight from the same document. The paper you send is the contract you might be living with, so sloppy drafts are expensive.

Behind all three jobs sits California's statute of frauds. Civil Code section 1624 makes a contract for the sale of real property invalid unless it's in writing and signed. A verbal offer binds no one. A verbal yes from the seller binds no one either, which is why a phone acceptance can still turn into someone else's signed deal that evening.

The form also protects itself. Paragraph 27 declares the signed RPA the final, complete, and exclusive statement of the agreement, changeable only by a writing signed by both parties. If a term matters to you, it goes in the boxes, not in a text thread.

Who fills out the RPA when there's no buyer's agent

You do. A buyer acting for herself needs no real estate license to prepare and sign her own offer, because licensing law reaches people who act for others for compensation. The who writes the offer guide walks through that legal footing and what each kind of helper is allowed to do. The short version:

• You fill in every substantive term yourself. Legal, normal, and exactly what the form's fill-in design expects.
• An attorney can prepare the contract as part of legal services. California doesn't require one, escrow runs the closing here, but a lawyer is the right call for a non-standard deal.
• The listing agent can hand you the forms the transaction needs, but industry guidance tells them not to fill in substantive terms on your behalf, and to have you sign a Buyer Non-Agency Agreement making clear they don't represent you.
• Full listing-agent help exists only as disclosed dual agency, in writing, which changes who owes you what.

Paragraph 3: the grid where your offer lives

Sixteen pages sounds like a lot of writing. It mostly isn't. The bulk of what you decide lands in one dense grid near the front of the form: paragraph 3, Terms of Purchase and Allocation of Costs. Each row pairs a term with a fill-in box, and many rows carry a printed default that applies when the box stays blank.

Defaults are quiet. Nobody reads them to you, and they bind you exactly as if you'd chosen them. Here's the map of the rows a buyer actually touches.

• 3A: the purchase price.
• 3B: close of escrow.
• 3C: how long your offer stays open.
• 3D: the initial deposit.
• 3E: the loans you're planning.
• 3G: seller credit, if you negotiated one.
• 3H: your 3-day proof deadline.
• 3L: the contingency grid.
• 3Q: who pays which cost.

3A to 3C: price, closing day, and shelf life

Three quick rows set the spine of the deal.

• 3A is the purchase price. The form doesn't care where your number came from, but the seller will, so anchor it to recent comparable sales before you commit it to ink.
• 3B is close of escrow, written as a specific date or as days after acceptance. There's no printed default; it's a pure fill-in. Financed California purchases commonly land around 30 to 45 days, and your lender's timeline, not optimism, should set the number.
• 3C is your offer's shelf life. The printed default revokes the offer if the seller hasn't signed and delivered acceptance back by 5 p.m. on the third calendar day after you sign. Want a shorter or longer fuse? Write one in.

3D, 3E, and 3H: deposit, loans, and the proof clock

3D is your initial deposit, the earnest money. The printed default has you delivering it by wire, directly to the escrow holder, within 3 business days after acceptance. It never goes to the seller. Sizing it and protecting it is its own subject; the earnest money and escrow guide walks that whole path.

3E describes your financing: the loan or loans, the amounts, the type. Cash buyers skip the loan rows, not the paperwork.

3H is the first deadline you'll feel after acceptance: 3 days to deliver verification of your down payment and of your loan application. Line up the bank letter before you offer, not after.

3L: the contingency grid and the famous 17 days

Contingencies are your exit doors. While one is alive you can cancel based on it, and in the typical case your deposit follows you out. The 3L grid lists each one with a printed default, every entry counted in days after acceptance and every entry editable.

• Loan contingency: 17 days.
• Appraisal contingency: 17 days.
• Investigation of the property, meaning your inspections: 17 days.
• Review of seller documents: 17 days, or 5 days after delivery, whichever is later.
• Preliminary title report: the same 17-or-5 pattern.
• HOA documents: the same 17-or-5 pattern.
• Sale of your current home: not a contingency at all unless Form COP is attached at 3L(8).

The supporting clocks around the grid

Two timelines lean on 3L from nearby rows: the seller's disclosure package is due within 7 days after acceptance under 3N(1), and 3J sets your final verification of the property's condition within the 5 days before close of escrow. Disclosures ride their own forms, and the disclosure checklist covers what should show up in that 7-day window.

The form also travels with advisories, including a Wire Fraud Advisory, and that one earns its keep. Wiring instructions come from the escrow holder, and the safe habit is confirming them by phone at a number you found independently before any money moves.

Treat 17 as a starting point, not a law. Competitive buyers shorten these windows to look stronger. Cautious buyers hold or lengthen them. Which trade to make on your deal is a judgment call the form won't make for you.

3Q: eighteen rows of who pays for what

The back half of the grid, 3Q, allocates costs across 18 line items: inspections, reports, government charges, title, escrow, warranty. Each line gets assigned to buyer, seller, or a split. County custom usually shapes the first draft, but custom isn't binding. The checked boxes control.

• Q7 names the escrow holder and splits the escrow fee.
• Q8 assigns the owner's title insurance policy.
• Q10 and Q11 cover county and city transfer taxes.
• Q18 handles the home warranty, if any.

3G: where a seller credit gets written

One row deserves its own stop: 3G(1), the seller credit to buyer, written as dollars or a percentage of the price. If you're negotiating a credit instead of a lower price, this is where it lands, applied to your closing costs at close of escrow.

Mind paragraph 5E, though. Credits get disclosed to your lender, lenders cap them, and if the lender allows less than the contract says, the credit shrinks to the allowed amount with no automatic price adjustment making up the difference. Size the credit to your loan's cap before you write it.

Deadlines don't enforce themselves

Here's the mechanic that surprises buyers most. RPA contingencies are removed actively, in writing, on Form CR. Day 17 passing does nothing by itself; your contingency survives until you sign it away.

The seller's counter-tool is the Notice to Buyer to Perform. It must be in writing, signed by the seller, give you at least 2 days after delivery to act, and it can't be delivered more than 2 days before your performance date. Ignore it and the seller earns the right to cancel.

The closing-table version is the Demand to Close Escrow, minimum 3 days. The rhythm repeats across the form: deadline, written nudge, then cancellation rights. Nothing happens automatically. Nothing stays open forever, either.

How to get a usable contract without an agent

Now the honest part. The C.A.R. RPA is copyrighted and member-gated: C.A.R.'s own download requires a member sign-in, and the notice on page 16 forbids unauthorized reproduction. There is no lawful blank-PDF-from-a-search-result route.

Steer around the free-template internet too. Generic purchase agreements often skip California-specific provisions, and a contract missing the state's disclosure and timeline machinery isn't protecting you. It just looks like paperwork.

What a buyer without an agent actually has is a short list of honest paths, below. Whichever one supplies the contract, sending it well is on you: the offer playbook covers packaging the signed form with proof of funds so the seller side can present it cleanly.

• The listing side supplies the forms. This is the most common route: the listing agent provides what the transaction needs, you fill in your own terms, and you'll likely sign a Buyer Non-Agency Agreement along the way.
• A real estate attorney prepares the contract as part of legal services.
• A licensed alternative: RPI Form 150 is a purchase agreement published outside the C.A.R. system, and many San Francisco Peninsula deals run on the PRDS contract instead of the RPA.
• Traditional forms channels: a local real estate office, a Board of REALTORS, or a county law library.
• A platform that prepares its own California purchase contract.

How Ohvii helps

One distinction to state plainly: Ohvii does not use C.A.R. forms, and its contract is not the RPA. Ohvii generates its own California purchase agreement, a 12-page contract for self-represented buyers, filled from the same decisions this guide walks through: price, deposit, financing, contingency days, cost allocation. The rest of the paperwork lives in the same system: buyer counters, addenda, contingency removals, repair requests, and the final walk-through verification each run through the same guided, sealed signing flow, and after acceptance your contingency and closing dates anchor to the terms you actually signed. Ohvii isn't your agent, attorney, or escrow holder, and it doesn't decide any of those terms; every box stays your call.

Questions buyers ask