Q. We are going to spend Pesach in another town, but we may be leaving our home on the morning of erev Pesach (Friday). If we make an early mechirah of the complete house to avoid having to clean the house and do bedikah, can we still stay in the house Thursday night, after it was already sold?
Should we / or would it be better to leave our house on Thursday and sleep at a hotel on the way to avoid any issues with the bedikah?
And if we leave on a Thursday, is it OK to leave in the afternoon, or should I wait until the evening, do the bedikah on one room in the house to fulfill my personal obligation of bedikah, and then leave?
If I leave on Thursday afternoon, how do I fulfill my personal obligation of bedikah chametz?
If I do the bedika on Thursday evening and then leave, should I take the chamets with me to do the burning of the chametz it in the morning?
Thank you
A) Poiskim offer different opinions in regards to Bedikas Chometz for someone who sells his entire dwelling before midday on the eve of Pesach (as is the custom to do with a regular Mechiras Chometz). There are those who maintain that even though at the onset of the Pesach prohibitions the property will not be his anymore, since at the beginning of the night of the fourteen of Nissan it still belongs to him he is obliged to do Bedika (Mekor Chaim 436,4 - Chaye Adam 119,8 - Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 110.6 et al.). Many other Poiskim exempt the Bedika (Chasam Sofer O.C. 121- Eishel Avraham 433 - Tzemach Tzedek 47 et al.), Nitey Gavriel (Pesach 1 27,1) mentions that the practice is to be lenient, however some are Machmir to make a Mechira Mukdemes, which is a selling that takes effect prior to the beginning of the fourteen.
In your own particular case, you don’t have to go through the expense of staying in a hotel. Rather it would be advisable to do two things. A) an early selling, but exempt one room that you do not include in the selling at all and where you are going to do the Bedika on the night of the fourteen with a Brocho. B) You will also specify in your contract an added condition, namely, that you want to still have use of your dwelling until you leave Friday morning at whatever time that may be. If you decide to leave on Thursday afternoon, you will not require this added second condition, but you will do the Bedika the night before (Wednesday) without a brocho in the room you exempted from the sale. Yes it will be advisable to take with you the remainders of the chometz, for you to burn at your new location at the proper time.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
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