Your closing happens on the day the closing agent has the money and has it Collected, which the contract defines as actually and finally collected in that agent’s account. Sending the money is a separate event from collecting it. The Fedwire Funds Service stops customer transfers at 6:45 p.m. ET, runs on no Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday, and your own bank’s deadline sits earlier than the Fed’s. Initiate the wire on the business day before the Closing Date.
What the contract counts as money in hand
Paragraph 4 of the FloridaRealtors/FloridaBar AS IS Residential Contract for Sale and Purchase, form ASIS-7x Rev. 12/26, fixes the moment: the closing of this transaction shall occur when all funds required for closing are received by Closing Agent and Collected pursuant to STANDARD S and all closing documents required to be furnished by each party pursuant to this Contract are delivered. Receipt alone does not satisfy that sentence. Collection is a second condition with a defined meaning.
STANDARD S supplies it. Collection or Collected means any checks tendered or received, including Deposits, have become actually and finally collected and deposited in the account of Escrow Agent or Closing Agent. The same Standard then grants an express power to wait: Closing and disbursement of funds and delivery of closing documents may be delayed by Closing Agent until such amounts have been Collected in Closing Agent’s accounts. Both passages read identically in the prior Rev. 12/24 edition, so this is standing language rather than a recent revision.
Paragraph 2(e) applies the same test to the largest figure on page one: the balance to close, excluding the buyer’s closing costs, prepaids and prorations, is payable by wire transfer or other Collected funds. Paragraph 2(a) marks the initial deposit as subject to Collection, which is why a deposit check does not count as a deposit paid until it clears.
The Fedwire cutoff is 6:45 p.m. ET, and your bank’s is earlier
The Federal Reserve Banks publish the operating schedule for the Fedwire Funds Service, the system that carries a domestic wire from your bank to the closing agent’s bank. Its funds transfer business day opens at 9:00 p.m. ET on the preceding calendar day and closes at 7:00 p.m. ET, and customer transfers, the message category that moves a homebuyer’s funds, stop at 6:45 p.m. ET.
That time is the outer wall of the system rather than your deadline. Yours is whatever cutoff your own bank sets for accepting and releasing an outgoing wire, and a retail branch commonly stops hours before the Fed does. Ask your bank for its posted outgoing wire cutoff in writing and treat that hour as the real one, because a request accepted after it becomes a next business day wire no matter what the Fed’s schedule allows.
Weekends and eleven holidays are not funding days
For the Fedwire Funds Service the Federal Reserve Banks observe all Saturdays, all Sundays and the holidays on their published schedule, and every other calendar day is a funds transfer business day. That schedule carries eleven holidays, matching the legal public holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a). Three remain in 2026: Veterans Day on Wednesday, November 11, Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 26, and Christmas Day on Friday, December 25.
STANDARD F of the contract handles one half of this and leaves the other half to you. It makes time of the essence, computes time periods in calendar days, and extends any date falling on a Saturday, Sunday or a 5 U.S.C. 6103(a) holiday to the next calendar day that is none of those. A Closing Date written as Friday, December 25, 2026 therefore moves to Monday, December 28, since the twenty-sixth is a Saturday and the twenty-seventh a Sunday. The Closing Date will never land on a day the wire system is shut.
Extra funding days ahead of that date are a different matter, and STANDARD F creates none. Take a closing set for Monday, November 30, 2026. The last Fedwire business day before it is Friday, November 27, three calendar days earlier. Anyone planning to send funds “the day before” a Monday closing is really sending them on the preceding Friday, against a Friday afternoon cutoff at their own bank.
Why a cashier’s check for the full balance does not fix the timing
Regulation CC gives a cashier’s, certified or teller’s check next business day availability under 12 CFR 229.10(c)(1)(v), on three conditions: deposited in an account held by a payee of the check, in person to an employee of the depositary bank, and with a special deposit slip or envelope if the bank requires one. Remove the in person element and 12 CFR 229.10(c)(2) pushes availability to the second business day.
Size triggers a separate rule. Under 12 CFR 229.13(b), the next day rule and the general schedule stop applying to check deposits to the extent the aggregate exceeds $6,725 on any one banking day. On a $450,000 contract price with 20 percent down, a $90,000 cashier’s check carries $6,725 of guaranteed next day availability and $83,275 the bank may hold, and 12 CFR 229.13(h)(4) lets it extend the ordinary schedule by a reasonable period defined as five business days.
Availability and collection are different things, which is the heart of the matter. Regulation CC tells a bank when it must let a depositor use the money. STANDARD S requires the funds to be actually and finally collected. Regulation CC uses that exact phrase in one place, 12 CFR 229.10(b)(2), and it is the electronic payments rule: a bank receives an electronic payment only to the extent that the bank has received payment in actually and finally collected funds. A completed wire meets the contract’s test on arrival. A check meets it when it clears.
| Method | When the closing agent holds Collected funds | What the rules let the bank do |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic wire | On arrival, because 12 CFR 229.10(b)(2) treats an electronic payment as received only to the extent it is in actually and finally collected funds. | Availability no later than the business day after receipt, including in a new account under 12 CFR 229.13(a)(1)(i). |
| Cashier’s, certified or teller’s check | When it clears, which a deposit receipt does not establish. | Hold the amount above $6,725 under 12 CFR 229.13(b) and extend the schedule by five business days under 12 CFR 229.13(h)(4). |
| Check deposited into an account under 30 days old | Later still, and the age of the account is the trigger. | 12 CFR 229.13(a) limits availability to the first $6,725, with the excess due by the ninth business day. |
Where the money sits between your wire and the closing
Section 626.8473, Florida Statutes, governs escrow held by a title insurance agency. Subsection (2) makes those funds trust funds received in a fiduciary capacity and the property of the person or persons entitled thereto, so the money remains yours while it waits. Subsection (3) requires it to be placed immediately in a financial institution located within this state and insured by the FDIC or the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, and kept there until disbursement is properly authorized. Subsection (4) shields it from the agency’s own debts and permits its use only in accordance with the escrow, settlement or closing instructions under which it was accepted.
Confirm the instructions by voice before you release anything
Wire instructions that arrive by email stay unverified until you check them over a channel the email did not supply. Call the closing agent at a number you obtained independently, from the signed contract, the title commitment or the firm’s listed line, and read the routing number, the account number and the beneficiary name back for confirmation. Any phone number, link or reply address inside the message carrying the instructions is part of that message rather than a check on it. Give a mid transaction change to banking details the same treatment.
What to settle before closing week
- Ask the closing agent in writing for the hour by which it needs funds to disburse on the Closing Date, and whether it requires a wire for the full balance to close.
- Get your bank’s posted outgoing wire cutoff in writing, then work backward from the earlier of that hour and 6:45 p.m. ET.
- Check whether the Closing Date is a Monday or follows a holiday, either of which moves your real funding day two or three calendar days earlier.
- Move money into the account you will wire from several business days ahead, so a transfer between your own accounts is not under a hold on funding day.
- If that account is less than 30 days old, assume 12 CFR 229.13(a) applies to anything deposited by check and plan on wires only.
- Verify the instructions by voice to an independently sourced number, then confirm receipt with the closing agent after sending.
Frequently asked questions
Will a Florida closing agent take a cashier’s check for the full balance to close?
Paragraph 2(e) permits wire transfer or other Collected funds, so the form does not exclude a cashier’s check, and STANDARD S lets the closing agent delay closing and disbursement until the amount is Collected in its accounts. The obstacle is 12 CFR 229.13(b), which removes next day availability from the portion of a check deposit above $6,725 on one banking day. Ask the closing agent for its requirement before buying the check, because the contract leaves that call to whoever holds the money.
What happens if my wire lands the day after the Closing Date?
Under Paragraph 4 closing has not occurred, since the funds were not received and Collected. STANDARD F makes time of the essence, and Paragraph 15(a) lets the seller elect to recover and retain the Deposit as agreed upon liquidated damages where the buyer fails, neglects or refuses to perform within the times specified, or to proceed in equity instead. Whether a one day delay reaches that threshold turns on the facts and on what the seller elects, which is the reason the funding date gets set before closing week.
Does the Closing Date move when it falls on a holiday?
Yes. STANDARD F extends any date landing on a Saturday, Sunday or a legal public holiday under 5 U.S.C. 6103(a) to the next calendar day that is none of those. Because the Federal Reserve Banks observe those same eleven holidays plus every weekend for the Fedwire Funds Service, a Closing Date never arrives on a day the wire system is closed. The days before it still can be, and the contract extends none of them.
Where to go from here
Funding is a scheduling problem with a legal deadline attached, and two times solve it: the hour your closing agent needs the money and the hour your bank stops sending it. For how the same Collection rule governs the deposit, see how much earnest money you need in Florida and when it is due, and for lender timing that can move a Closing Date, see which loan changes delay a Florida closing by three days. Sellers tracking the disbursement side can start with what you actually net selling a house in Florida.
If you have a closing date set and want the funding plan built backward from it, book a strategy session with our team at mvphomegroup.com/nelsoncruz. We confirm the closing agent’s funding hour and your bank’s cutoff first, because those two times decide the rest of the calendar. This is general information about Florida contract forms, Florida statutes and federal banking regulations, not legal advice, and it does not replace your closing agent’s written instructions.
Nelson Cruz, P.A.
Founder & CEO
MVP Home Group, Real Broker LLC
Nelson brings nearly two decades in law enforcement to his work in real estate. View Nelson’s profile or contact our team at 407-901-9939 or [email protected].
Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration of a large round brushed-steel wall clock showing late afternoon above a bank counter, with banded bundles of unmarked currency in a stainless deposit tray, a closed cash drawer and a brass counter rail in cool daylight. No readable text, signage or logos. Not a particular bank, title office or property.