The delay is not all preparation work.
Some of it can be waiting.
It's one file sitting still between desks, waiting for someone to notice it's their turn.
When a closing team asks what a seller owes, the answer may need to be assembled and checked against current records.
In the example from the previous article, separate teams hold pieces of the answer and ownership of the handoff is unclear.
So it moves like a baton in a relay where nobody painted the exchange zone. Both runners are quick. The handoff is where the time goes.
Now add the four front doors — email, portal, phone, fax — and one more thing.
The requested form and supporting documents can differ between transactions and communities.
A familiar-looking template still needs to be checked against the actual request.
But none of that is the expensive part.One serious defect is an account balance that does not match current records.
A payment applied to the previous owner after a sale. Ownership data that went stale two months ago.
Without a review step, the number can reach the customer before the discrepancy is resolved.
That isn't an admin problem. That's liability.Check the current requirements for the jurisdiction, document, and transaction instead of applying one nationwide fee or deadline.
Assign someone to maintain the applicable fee, timing, and cancellation rules used by each workflow.
Have the responsible reviewer confirm those rules before configuring prices and release steps.
Different requirements. A workflow that must account for them.
That is a reason to make requirements and ownership explicit. Software should support the responsible review process rather than assume every order follows the same rules.
So: Delays are the symptom.
The disease is that the answer lives in five places at once and nobody owns the handoff.