Prospective home buyers are breathing a sigh of relief Thursday.

On Wednesday night the Senate approved more time for home buyers seeking to claim a federal tax credit of up to $8,000. The House approved the measure on Tuesday. The measure would help those who entered into binding contracts before April 30, giving such buyers an extra 90 days until Sept. 30 to close the sale. Under current law, they had until June 30 to be eligible for tax credits. The legislation is now headed for the president s signature.

The reprieve means more time for those would-be buyers who got tripped up with their purchase from the time they signed the contract. On Monday, the National Association of Realtors said that up to 180,000 buyers would miss the June 30 deadline.

The majority of people who were under contract were still going to buy the home, but were disappointed at the possibility of missing the tax credit, says Kevin Sears, co-owner of Sears Real Estate in Springfield, Mass., and president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. We had several people who, through no fault of their own, missed [Wednesday s] deadline.

Here are a few things to keep in mind to make sure your deal will close by Sept. 30.

Be diligent

Have constant communication with your attorney, your mortgage processor and your agent.

If you missed the deadline, find out why you missed it. If it was because of a mortgage delay, ask your mortgage company what you were missing, says Pat Lashinsky, president and CEO of ZipRealty. If it was a title issue, work with your agent or attorney (depending on your state) to contact the title company to get whatever information is still lacking, he says.

But keep in mind that with a short sale, there s not a lot that s in the buyer s or broker s hands, says Tara-Nicholle Nelson, consumer educator with Trulia.com. Keep checking in with the property s listing agents; it s not in their hands either, but they are the only avenue of communication with the bank. It s really a squeaky wheel situation, Nelson says.

The 90-day extension will likely provide enough time for buyers to close on real estate owned properties, or REOs, says Nelson, but on short sales, anything can get in the way. The bank can come back and ask for more money, or the house can even go into foreclosure even if there s a buyer in contract on it, she says.

Don t drag your feet

Don t think that the extra three months is plenty of time to close on your house.

With this extension, try to close as soon as possible, because the more delays you have in closing, the more you get backed up to the next deadline, the more of a chance you ll be in the same situation later, says Sears.

Indeed, any number of details can still trip up the process: Your mortgage banker may pull a refreshed credit report immediately before the closing date, or you might get a low home appraisal common scenarios that can delay a closing.

Monitor new-home construction

Banks won t approve your mortgage unless the home is livable and ready to be occupied. So if your closing got delayed because your new-home construction wasn t finished in time to meet the tax-credit deadline, contact your builder and ask that your property be prioritized.

I would ask them, What are you going to do to ensure that my home is at the top of your list? Give me a time line, so it s done 30 days before the new deadline, Lashinsky says.

Check on your rate

If you missed the June 30 deadline and plan to go through with the purchase to take advantage of the extension, make sure your interest rate will still be valid or try to extend it, says Dale Siegel, owner of Circle Mortgage in Harrison, N.Y. If you had locked in your rate for a specific time period which has passed, go back to your bank and reapply. With mortgage rates at record lows, you might even be able to lock in a better rate now, she says.