Is this the world's longest closing period?

[Tyler Faison]

Ok, so check this out. I've been trying to buy a commercial property from a guy for about 2 years now. He's an older gentleman, around 80 years old, and has had the building since the 1980's. We came close to getting him to sign a purchase agreement a few times, but each time he ended up backing out because he just wasn't emotionally ready to sell. His wife collects things from estate sales and hoards it at this place. It's a great 13,300 sqft building that fits our needs perfectly, so we really want to make it work. He was supposed to have everything out of there by December but hardly anything has changed over the past 6-8 months. However, both his and his wife's health condition has worsened since the summer and he knows he needs to sell. So, we've come up with some terms that are a little unusual, but work for both of us. Remember, our main goal is to get this under contract so we can make other buying and business decisions.

1) We'll give him an 11% earnest money deposit. It's going into escrow and will be released after our 45-day inspection period, should we decide to complete the sale. This will get him and his wife the funds needed for a senior care facility for a year. This also is applicable to the sale of the property and satisfies our 10% down required from our lender (SBA 504 loan -- good for owner-occupied small businesses, which we are and is a whole other topic on a different strategy to acquire commercial RE).

2) From our effective date, the closing date is set for 365 days. This gives him 1 year to get his stuff out. Otherwise, we will take ownership of all remaining items (it's not garbage, it just a lot of stuff...some of value, some not).

3) In exchange for this, we will office out of part of the building, rent-free, that is tenant-ready and hasn't seen the wrath of his wife. The terms and responsibilities are outlined very specifically in a lease agreement.

My main question to the BP family is what we should look out for over the course of such a long closing period. Things we've thought of, particularly considering their health situation, include making sure his ducks are in a row to keep it out of probate should their health take a bad turn (we've verified his corporation technically still owns the property and he's all the officers), still getting an appraisal within 30 days (it will also still be valid for the lender). 

Would you do this? What extra steps, beyond what's typical, would you take to make sure this goes through ok? Thanks in advance! Let's see how this goes...