# Draft Closing Checklist > Guides drafting of a comprehensive closing checklist from executed acquisition documents, requiring deal-specific conditions and deliverables drawn from the principal agreement with section references, cross-document discrepancy flags, and tracking of insurance, rollover, employment, and tax-certification items. - Skill: `finchipaiorg/draft-closing-checklist` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add finchipaiorg/draft-closing-checklist` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/finchipaiorg/draft-closing-checklist/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: FinchipAIOrg (https://skillmd.com/u/finchipaiorg) - Updated: 2026-09-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/finchipaiorg/draft-closing-checklist --- # Skill: Draft Closing Checklist ## 1. Subject-matter triage - Confirm the primary deliverable is the closing checklist itself; produce the checklist first and treat any cover note or summary as secondary. - Pull items from the executed purchase agreement and all ancillary closing documents, then reconcile them into one transaction-control document. - Treat the task as a document-extraction and comparison exercise: enumerate every closing condition, deliverable, consent, covenant, and deadline that is operative for signing-to-closing management. - If the file set includes multiple counterparties, multiple closing dates, or staged closings, separate the items by party and by closing event rather than collapsing them into one pass. ## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting - Drafting a generic checklist template instead of a deal-specific closing tracker derived from the actual operative documents. - Omitting controlling references, which makes it impossible to trace each item to the source provision. - Failing to surface items that are commonly embedded across multiple documents, including insurance-related conditions, rollover deliverables, employment agreements, tax certificates, releases, and good-standing or officer certificates. - Missing timing dependencies, such as items that must occur before closing, at closing, or immediately after closing. - Not flagging inconsistencies across documents, such as a checklist item that does not match the governing provision, a deadline that conflicts with another deliverable, or a condition appearing in one document but not the others. ## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply - A closing checklist is a transaction-control tool, not a narrative memo: every line should identify the item, the responsible party, the source authority, the timing requirement, and current status. - Structure closing conditions by category: mutual conditions, buyer conditions, seller conditions, buyer deliverables, seller deliverables, third-party consents and regulatory approvals, pre-closing covenants, and post-closing obligations. - Use the principal agreement as the anchor document, but verify whether ancillary documents impose additional obligations or modify timing, form, or deliverable sequence. - For conditions tied to transaction insurance, treat the insurance covenant or condition as a separate checklist line item and distinguish policy effectiveness from any required insurer acknowledgment or related statement. - For rollover arrangements, governance documents, and equity instruments, identify whether execution is a condition to closing or a closing deliverable, and place the item in the correct category. - For executive employment agreements, list each required agreement separately when the source documents require individualized execution or delivery. - For tax-status certifications or similar tax deliverables, track both delivery and any connected withholding, reporting, or certification verification obligation. - For each item, cite the controlling document and section or schedule exactly as it appears in the source set; do not infer authority without a citation. - When the documents use defined terms for closing conditions, approvals, or deliverables, preserve those terms in the checklist to avoid ambiguity. ## 4. Analytical scaffolds - First enumerate the universe of checklist items from the source set: 1. Mutual conditions 2. Buyer conditions to closing 3. Seller conditions to closing 4. Buyer closing deliverables 5. Seller closing deliverables 6. Third-party consents and regulatory approvals 7. Pre-closing covenants to be satisfied before closing 8. Post-closing obligations that should be monitored for completion - For each item, capture: - Item description - Responsible party - Deadline or timing trigger - Controlling-document reference - Status - Cross-document note, if any - When multiple documents address the same topic, compare them before finalizing the line item and note any discrepancy or duplication. - Where the source set is silent on a needed implementation detail, mark the checklist entry as open or verify rather than filling the gap with assumed language. - Preserve deal-specific sequencing: a condition precedent should not be listed as an at-closing deliverable unless the source documents support that placement. - If an item depends on another item, indicate the dependency in the timing note so the checklist functions as a closing run sheet. - Include a discrepancy flag whenever: - a deadline differs across documents, - a deliverable is described differently in two places, - one document imposes an item that another document omits, - the checklist draft would otherwise imply a requirement not supported by the source set. - Treat each required consent, approval, certificate, agreement, or waiver as a separate row when it has its own source authority or deadline. - If a condition appears to require factual verification rather than a document delivery, reflect that as a verification item rather than converting it into a deliverable. ## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships - Separate pre-signing, signing-to-closing, closing, and post-closing obligations so that timing risk is visible. - Distinguish mutual conditions from one-sided conditions; do not merge them into a single generic “all conditions” bucket. - For each closing deliverable, note whether it is exchanged before funds flow, simultaneously with closing, or immediately after closing. - Where a delivery is conditioned on another party’s action, reflect the dependency and identify which side is holding the next step. - If the checklist spans multiple dates or milestones, organize it chronologically within each category. ## 6. Output structure conventions - Output a professional closing checklist suitable for insertion into a Word document. - Use a clean tabular format or equivalent structured list with, at minimum, these fields: - Category - Item - Responsible party - Deadline / timing - Controlling reference - Status - Cross-document discrepancy / note - Keep the checklist deal-specific; do not use filler rows or generic placeholders unless the source set truly leaves an item undefined. - Flag timing risks in plain language where a deadline is compressed, contingent, or inconsistent across documents. - Use conventional closing-checklist headings rather than reproducing any internal rubric labels. - Ensure the final file is the operative checklist, not a summary of how to prepare one.