What Does A Residential Real Estate Attorney Do?

Video: What Does A Residential Real Estate Attorney Do?

FAQ’s With Roy Oppenheim

Full Transcript:  A good question we get is, “What does a residential real estate attorney actually do?” And the answer to that is well, first of all, it depends if they’re representing the buyer or they’re representing the seller. So if you’re representing the buyer, obviously, the first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to help negotiate the contract, and make sure that title is in good shape so that when you are going to buy the real estate that you, in fact, are getting a good title.

And so they’re going to make sure that the title is in good shape. They’re going to make sure that the title insurance is properly issued, and they’re going to make sure that when you do end up with the property that there are no problems, and they’re also going to make sure that what has been negotiated is fair, and that in fact when you get the property that there’s not going to be someone occupying it because, you know, it wasn’t properly negotiated, or you didn’t know that there’s still a tenant there or someone’s stepson is still living in the basement or something to that effect.

And so those are the kinds of issues that you probably want to have a lawyer around for, because a realtor really isn’t schooled and trained to deal with the legal issues associated with real estate. The other thing that we’re sometimes seeing especially if you’re a buyer, is sometimes sellers after they sign their contracts want to change their mind, and they have seller remorse. And in the last few months and maybe the past year we’ve seen a lot of that. They sign the contract, you think you’re going to go ahead and buy the property, and they decide they’re not going to close.

And when that happens, you need a lawyer and you need a lawyer quickly, and you don’t want to spend a ton of time or money having to go to court. So you need someone who knows exactly what levers to pull and what triggers to pull in order to make sure that we can get the seller to come to the table and sell their property pursuant to the contract that they issued. A realtor is not schooled in that area and that’s not their job.

That’s a lawyer. So when you’re selling a piece of real estate and you’re going to, you know, end up with a lot of money from the sale or you’re paying off a lot of debt, you want to make sure that the deal goes off without a hitch. So that’s from the seller’s side. But again, back on the buyer’s side, if you are, you know, a lawyer representing the buyer, you want to make sure that everything goes according to plan.

Learn More About Residential Real Estate For Buyers & Sellers

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• Residential Real Estate Transactions for Sellers