Do I Need to Hire a Real Estate Attorney?

Buying a home:

Buying a home is likely to be the most expensive investment you are going to make in your lifetime.

Coupled with the anxiety and excitement that comes with purchasing your new home, is the crunching of numbers.  After calculating your deposit, your down payment and your bank closing costs, many people start to feel overwhelmed and believe they can’t afford to hire an attorney.  The fact of the matter is that they can’t afford not to. The role of a good real estate attorney is sometimes understated.

Your attorney should provide you counsel from the time you put an offer on your new house through the final day you close on your new home in their office.  And believe it or not, your real estate attorney is usually the least expensive part of your home buying process.  They provide guidance for you throughout the whole  home buying  process protecting your investment and making sure you are getting exactly what you bargained for.  They often are your last line of defense before you finalize your purchase.

Selling a Home:

Attorneys are very useful and important when you are selling your home.  A Seller’s attorney is there to make sure that your sale goes smoothly and that all proper property disclosures are presented to the Buyer so that problems don’t arise farther along in the transaction that can jeopardize the sale.  A competent attorney knows what pitfalls may occur down the road and can prevent them from happening before and after the sale.

Refinancing a Home:

It is true that many banks or mortgage lending institutions make tell you that you do not need an attorney to represent you at your refinance or that you can use the bank’s attorney to represent you.  This is true in some cases.  It is important, although, that you are aware that you always have the right to hire an attorney of your choice to represent you in your refinance.  The reality is that you will be signing a lot of the same documents at your refinance closing as you would when you buy a house and the mortgage company’s interests are not always the same as yours.  A good real estate attorney represents your interests and not the banks.  They are there to make sure that you are getting the correct interest rates and closing costs that you were promised.