Buyer and seller must agree on closing date

Q. I listed my home for sale last month, and quickly received a full-price offer from a woman who wants to close the deal in 30 days. I agreed to her offering price, but sent her a letter stating that I would need at least 60 days to close the deal. She says that she can't wait for 60 days and now wants her deposit back. Can I keep the deposit because I accepted her full-price offer?

A. Sorry, but you'll have to give your potential buyer her deposit back if you cannot reach a compromise on a suitable closing date.

Although you agreed to accept the full-price offer, your written request for a 60-day closing instead of a 30-day closing constituted a legal counteroffer that the buyer could either accept or reject.

By making a counteroffer, you also rendered the buyer's original offer null and void. You have to return the deposit because you didn't accept the sales proposal in its entirety.

Your letter doesn't explain why you need 60 days to close the transaction and move out. Both you and the buyer have agreed upon a sale price, so maybe you can still save the deal by agreeing to close in 30 days and then rent the home back from her for another month.

It's not a perfect solution to your problem, but it's an option that's certainly worth considering - especially because you and the buyer seem to agree on the sale price and all other terms of the proposed transaction.

Q. My credit is pretty good, except for an account of mine that was sent to a collection agency two years ago by a dentist who I refused to pay after a botched oral surgery. How will this collection account affect my credit, especially now that I am planning to buy a home in the next couple of months?

A. Medical-related accounts usually don't appear on a credit report unless they are sent to a collection agency, according to Maxine Sweet, a consumer-affairs expert at credit-reporting giant Experian Group. But once those bills are turned over to a collection agency, they'll have the same effect as any other collection account - meaning that they'll likely remain on your report for seven years.

For privacy reasons, no specific medical information (or even the name of the facility you visited) will be listed on the credit report that is obtained by your mortgage lender. The entry will simply be stated as a "medical collection."

However, if you order a copy of the report for your personal review, the name of the collection agency or medical provider will indeed be listed so you will know the exact source of the debt and how to contact the firm to settle the dispute.

Q. We are planning to refinance. My husband receives $650 per month for a permanent disability. Can we include that $650 as "income" on our loan application to improve our chances of getting the mortgage?

A. Yes, you can list the disability payments on your mortgage application, and the lender must consider it as income when making its loan decision.

Banks are generally under no obligation to consider short-term disability payments that will end in the foreseeable future, such as state payments to a pregnant woman or a union's payments to a worker who's mending a broken leg. However, federal law requires banks to consider permanent disability payments when reviewing a customer's application in much the same way that they must consider payments from the Social Security Administration.

Q. You have written that people are allowed to get one free copy of their credit report from the three major credit bureaus every year. Does this mean I am entitled to only one report from a bureau of my choosing, or that each of the three must give me a free report every year?

A. Federal law requires each of the three largest bureaus - Experian, TransUnion and Equifax - to provide one free copy to consumers every year. This means you can get a total of three free reports (one from each bureau) every 12 months.

You can keep fairly good track of your credit files by ordering the free reports at four-month intervals. For example, you could get your first free report from Experian in February, another free one from TransUnion in June, and your last "freebie" in October from Equifax. You could then start the cycle all over again the following year.

The best place to order your free report is from www.annualcreditreport.com, the only Internet site that is jointly operated by the big three bureaus. Several other sites also offer free reports, but many of them are designed to lure you into buying additional credit-related services, and a few of them are outright scams that are operated by identity thieves.

• For the booklet "Straight Talk About Living Trusts," send $4 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to David Myers/Trust, P.O. Box 4405, Culver City, CA 90231-4405.

© 2014, Cowles Syndicate Inc.