6 Reasons to Hire a Real Estate Lawyer
People often associate lawyers with terrible things, like personal injury, divorce, car accident, or tenant eviction. However, there are plenty of situations where you can use some sound legal advice! One reason to hire a lawyer is for your real estate transaction. Here are some people who can use the legal services of a real estate law firm!
- A newly-wed couple looking to buy a home;
- Buyers and sellers who want to avoid any legal issue with their residential transactions;
- A first-timer selling real estate;
- Property owners who want to make sure they’re following the landlord-tenant laws for their condominium;
- And many more!
There are many good reasons to hire Shenandoah real estate lawyers! In this article, we’ll list down seven of the most relevant ones. If you’re ready to hire legal representation for real estate transactions, contact our Shenandoah law offices now! Get legal help with your real estate property when you give us a call.
Benefits of Hiring a Real Estate Law Attorney
Draft and review all the paperwork
There’s plenty of contracts involved with any real estate transaction. The most common documents you’ll have to fill out are as follows:
- Home inspection Reports
- Disclosures
- HOA documents
- Appraisals
- Sales contracts
Of course, your real estate agent or your mortgage lender can assist you with the deal itself, but you can’t call them experts with real estate law or contract law.
An attorney is well-versed with all these things and can help you with drafting a contract that’s specific to your deal, instead of a one-size-fits-all template contract. They can also help you go through a contract provided by a seller to see whether anything there is harmful to you.
Negotiation
The most extensive experience you’ll probably have with negotiating is bargaining for a car or your salary. Experienced real estate attorneys have spent years negotiating with people from the real estate market. This means they’re in a better position to strike you a deal that’s in your best interest.
Lien and Title Search
A lien and title search occur before any real estate purchase. A title search checks the legality of a property’s ownership. This ensures that the seller has the legal right to sell the property as well as the fact that no one else has a financial claim on it.
A real estate attorney can thoroughly execute the lien and title searches to prevent any dispute in the future. If there is an outstanding lien or a problem with the title, they will do everything possible to resolve the issue or negotiate a solution.
If there is no way to solve the problem, then they’ll advise you to stop the transaction immediately, which saves you time, energy, and money in this legal matter.
Reviewing Disclosures
No matter how much you trust the other side, it’s always best to look at the property with due diligence.
Most real estate sales require mandatory disclosures and home inspections. Home sellers have to put down whatever defect is there so that homebuyers make decisions with complete knowledge. Some scammers may try to pull the wool over your eyes by burying problems of the property with technical jargon.
A real estate attorney can help you ensure that everything about the property is in order when buying a home. With their legal service, they can review all these disclosures and tell you what all the legalese mean.
Closings
Closing on a property can be a complicated process. It involves everything from filing the deed to any last-minute problem with the transaction.
The actual closing on a property is a multi-step process. Filing the deed is one part of the process. Resolving any last-minute disputes is another element of closing.
If you’re heading into real estate investment, then you should know what a closing document is. Essentially, this document accounts for all the financial transactions that took place during the sales process.
Things included in the closing document may be:
- when the seller received the final payment
- when the escrow account was funded
- when and how much the buyer paid out in earnest money
If you’ve got an experienced closing attorney preparing your documents, be it for commercial real estate or residential real estate, then you can be sure that it meets all legal requirements by the time you need it.
Proper Filing
When there’s been a change in the owner of real property, you have to file a new deed. As a deed is a legal document, you should have someone who knows property law. Any mistake will just cost you time and money to correct, not to mention all the headaches from such a hassle.
A good real estate attorney will ensure that the deeds they make satisfy all legal requirements. Since they’re already so well-versed, not only can they do it accurately, but efficiently too.
Final Thoughts
There is a family law attorney for divorce and custody cases. You’ve got estate planning attorneys for your trusts and wills. Surely, you’ll need a real estate lawyer for your buying and selling concerns.
There are many benefits of hiring a real estate attorney. Any property owner selling property or individual looking to buy property would do well with an attorney solving their legal issues.
If you’re in the real estate business looking for an attorney, then you can call our experienced Shenandoah lawyers from Luis F. Hess, PLLC. Our real estate lawyer has handled various real estate cases from commercial leasing agreements to mortgage foreclosures.
What are you waiting for? Call our Shenandoah real estate law office now and consult with the best lawyers around!
