When Does the Option Period End?
Count from the Effective Date. Land on 5:00 p.m. local time. Do not move the date for a weekend. That is the whole rule, and every part of it gets missed.
The count
Paragraph 5B grants the buyer the unrestricted right to terminate by giving notice to the seller within ___ days after the Effective Date of this contract. Day 1 is the day after the Effective Date, so the deadline lands on the Effective Date plus that many calendar days. A 7-day option period on a contract effective Wednesday, July 1 ends Wednesday, July 8.
The Effective Date is the date of final acceptance, written into the EXECUTED block on the signature page by the broker. It is not the date the buyer signed, and it is not the day the listing changed status.
The hour
¶5B: notices under that paragraph must be given by 5:00 p.m. (local time where the Property is located) by the date specified. Local time is measured at the house, not at the brokerage. A property in El Paso runs on Mountain time even when the agent is sitting in Dallas.
It does not move for a weekend
Paragraph 5 does contain a weekend extension, but it sits in 5A(2), and 5A(2) covers exactly three things: the earnest money, the option fee, and the additional earnest money. The termination notice is not in that list.
¶5E makes time of the essence for all of Paragraph 5 and requires strict compliance with the time for performance. If the last day of the option period is a Sunday, the notice is due that Sunday by 5:00 p.m.
No fee, no option
¶5D: if no dollar amount is stated as the option fee, or the buyer fails to deliver it within the time required, the buyer does not have the unrestricted right to terminate under Paragraph 5. A day count in the blank with an empty fee line is not an option period.
What ends, and what keeps running
When the option period runs out, the ¶5 unrestricted exit is gone. The other exits in the file are on their own clocks and are unaffected: Buyer Approval under the Third Party Financing Addendum, the Seller's Disclosure Notice under 7B(2), title and survey objections under 6D, and the Subdivision Information under the property owners association addendum.
Stop counting days by hand
Drop your contract in at recontract.ai and every deadline computes itself: the Effective Date read off the execution block, the option period at 5:00 PM, the 3-day money window with the weekend rule already applied, the financing date off the 40-11, and the Closing Date. It is free, and the file is parsed in your browser.