Here’s Why You Should Hire a Real Estate Attorney
An interview with Alexis Hart McDowell originally published in ESTATENVY on 12/10/2021. Visit the article here: https://estatenvy.com/heres-why-you-should-hire-a-real-estate-attorney-2087#featured
Luca Piacentini, ESTATENVY Senior Writer
For both buyers and sellers, a real estate attorney can protect legal interests, provide rational counsel and act as an experienced teammate.
As the U.S. continues to experience a pandemic-fueled housing boom, many people may be embarking on the process of buying or selling a home for the first time. Whether a buyer or a seller, the overall process can be intimidating for the untrained person, especially when it comes down to the fine print. That is why a trusted real estate attorney can be a very valuable resource, helping both homebuyers and sellers avoid issues with paperwork, titling errors and expensive lawsuits that could potentially arise along the way.
ESTATENVY spoke with Alexis Hart McDowell, an experienced real estate attorney in Chicago, to learn more about the actual role of a real estate attorney and why they are so important in the process of selling or buying a home.
ESTATENVY: What are some of the benefits of hiring a real estate attorney? How do they help throughout the buying, selling and renting process?
Alexis Hart McDowell: Your real estate attorney's job is to protect your legal interests, provide rational counsel and be your teammate. Whether you are buying or selling property, you want to leverage your real estate attorney’s experience to protect you from things you have no idea about in the transaction.
One benefit of hiring a real estate attorney is that real estate contracts have many deadlines, provisions and requirements. An attorney will manage your deadlines so that your earnest money is not at risk, help you understand how the contract provisions work for and against you and inform you of your legal obligations and those of the other party.
Another benefit of hiring a real estate attorney is that they should provide rational counsel. Purchasing or selling a home can be anxiety-inducing or emotionally driven at times. Your real estate attorney should possess enough emotional intelligence to meet you where you are, understand the situation and bring you back to the reality of the situation so that you can make an educated decision, not an emotional one.
Lastly, your real estate attorney should be your teammate. At the Law Office of Alexis Hart McDowell, we consider ourselves to be the point guard of your team. Our job is to strategize and communicate throughout the transaction — with your Realtor, lender, seller’s counsel, buyer’s counsel, title company, etc. — to make sure we are all working toward the goal of getting you into your new home or selling your property.
ESTATENVY: Should buyers always hire a real estate attorney? How about sellers?
McDowell: Absolutely! A home is typically the most expensive thing most people will buy in their lives. Is that really something you want to do without legal guidance and oversight? People make the mistake of relying on others to be honest, know the law or guide them, and that is not anyone's job unless you hire them to do that for you. That is why you want to hire a real estate attorney.
Sellers also have heightened legal exposure because they have disclosures that must be completed accurately, a title to the property that needs to be clean, transfer documents prepared according to the law, as well as all other requirements — whether state, county or local — that need to be satisfied so that the title to the property is properly transferred and recorded.
ESTANTEVY: What are some potential issues that can arise with not hiring a real estate attorney?
McDowell: Your real estate attorney is the one person who typically touches every other person in the transaction, from the brokers, the lender and the other attorney, to the title company or escrow agent. Your attorney may have to interact with them all to protect your best interests. Without an attorney, who has the legal expertise to manage the transaction from each of those points of view and manage your legal interests? What if your settlement statement is incorrect, who are you going to if you are missing money? What if there is an argument over a deadline, who's going to be there to help you navigate that? What if there is a dispute over earnest money? Who is there that understands how the law applies to these situations and advocate on your behalf? Your real estate attorney, that’s who. These are just a few very typical situations that happen regularly in real estate transactions.
Having a real estate attorney for your transaction is a smart move, especially considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars you will probably spend on or receive from buying or selling a property. It is an investment that pays for itself immediately in relation to the risk associated with real estate transactions, in general, and the heightened risk of not having one at all.
