Most people have bought and sold a home at some point in their life and assume that it is a pretty straightforward process. The fact is, however, that real estate transactions can actually be quite complicated, and as they are dealing with a large asset, they need to be handled correctly. Whether you are selling your home on your own, or you have a realtor there by your side, it can be very beneficial to have an attorney as well. An attorney is an important part of the team and can take care of a wide range of potential issues to help ensure your sale goes smoothly. The following are some of the key benefits that an attorney brings to the table.
Title History
One of the most important things an attorney will be able to do when you are selling your home is analyze the title history of the property. If they find anything on the title that is going to cause problems, they can help you get the issues resolved as quickly as possible. Common title issues that an attorney can help with include old property tax debt, judgments, and easements.
Abstracting
When selling a piece of property, you will provide the buyers with the property abstract at closing. This is a collection of legal documents that are associated with the property. They typically include information about deeds, mortgages, probate records, court litigation records, and other things happened related to the property over the years. If you don’t have the abstract from when you bought the property, a new one will have to be built early in the closing process.
Contract Review
Real estate transactions are a major financial undertaking for both the buyer and the seller. To help ensure there aren’t any problems, it is legally necessary to have a contract in place to ensure each party’s rights and responsibilities are clearly documented and agreed to. While there are some standard real estate contracts, it is important that they are sufficiently customized to reflect your specific deal. Having an attorney on your team will allow them to review the contract to ensure there aren’t any irregularities AND explain its contents to you is vitally important.
Title Clearing
Whether you know about issues with your title or not, they will need to be dealt with before you can sell your home. Your attorney will be able to gather up all the information related to any title problems, and help determine how they can be cleaned up. In some cases, the problems can be addressed with a simple affidavit. In other cases, you may need to pay off an old obligation of some sort. Either way, having an attorney at your side will help ensure the action you take is based on your best interests.
Better Safe than Sorry
There are many things that an attorney can help you with when selling your home. Some of them are problems that may appear at any point along the sale process, which is why it is important to have a lawyer there to help from the beginning. A real estate attorney is typically going to be paid by the hour that they are actually working on your case, which means they are an extremely affordable resource to have when you need them. Danilson Law offers flat fee real estate legal services so you can be confident in the cost of our representation from the outset. If you are thinking about selling your home, contact us to talk about what we can do for you.
