2 years ago
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Lawyers and Real Estate
One area of disagreement my instructor and I had yesterday was the proper role of lawyers in real estate transactions. She, like most agents I know, hates lawyers and thinks they should be eliminated from the entire process, as they are in California and many other states. I think that, given my instructor's own estimation that 97% of all agents don't know what they're doing, why would anyone entrust a $3,000,000 transaction, "the most important investment decision you'll make in your life" if you believe the flacks from the National Association of Realtors (I don't, but never mind, to anyone except a trained, experienced real estate lawyer? I heard more misinformation about real estate law yesterday than I usually encounter all year. "Time is of the essence is just a standard term," for instance. Wrong! And, as I pointed out to no effect, if you don't know the legal implications of a term, don't write it into a contract. Buyers and sellers in Greenwich are spared the doubtful assistance of well meaning but ignorant wanna be lawyer/real estate agents because we don't use binders and all transactions are done via contracts prepared by attorneys. Yes, there are some lawyers in town who know as little about real estate law as the agent who sold the house, and there are some out sized egos around ready to screw up deals by imposing ridiculous terms and conditions solely because they can, but a good attorney, together with his or her paralegal, will protect your interests and ensure a seamless, smooth transaction far better than most agents. No, I longer practice real estate law but I remember when I did and I certainly can appreciate watching a good one at work today. Money well spent, I think.
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4 comments:
when will you go online?
Er, at 9:04 this morning?
Lawyers are necessary because some real estate brokers will push the sale even though it is not in the best interest of their client. The real estate broker is your "agent" but really they are involved in many conflicts of interest (i.e. Seller and buyer broker from same real estate office) and basically want the deal to go through regardless of the concerns of their client.
The best agents, the ones who intend to stick around for a long time, do their very best to help clients reach a rational decision on buying, or even not buying a house. But I like the idea of a lawyer looking out for my interests. All this news about variable rate and balloon mortgages surprising borrowers reminded me that none of my clients and certainly no clients of the real estate lawyers I most respect in town were ever surprised by the terms of their mortgage. We'd go through them, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, even when our client was some Wall Street hotshot who insisted that he knew what he was signing. That doesn't mean no one ever gulped when he got his new revised mortgage rate, but he sure as heck could have expected it. So again, for a few thousand dollars (I think that's what they're charging these days - when I left that area of practice 15 years ago, my fees were around ($1,000)buy some peace of mind.
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