I’ve sold and owner-financed three houses. Never used an attorney. With one, I used a realtor, because the house was a vacation house and not in my city. The title company was where everything happened in all three cases. They drew up the paperwork and coordinated EVERYTHING. In the case of the vacation house, it was all done by email or snail mail. I never even met the people who bought the house.
Slight aside: I’ve been singing this song to my friends who own a paid-for house (possibly theirs, but more often, a parent’s) and are thinking of generating income by becoming landlords. :smack: A much better idea is to sell the house and owner-finance it. When you’re a landlord, the house is still yours, and you are responsible for taxes, major maintenance, insurance, etc. When you owner-finance it, the buyer is responsible for all of those things and you just collect a mortgage check every month. It never occurred to me in a million years to do this when I was preparing to be a landlord. My tax preparer floated the idea and I thought it would be something terribly complicated. But now, I’ve done it three times, with my own house, the vacation house, and my mother’s house. It was very simple-- title company handled everything, step by step. This is what they do. Three different title companies, as these houses were in three different cities. I get some nice mortgage checks in the mail every month. If you need the ginormous wad of cash from the sale, then this probably isn’t for you. But if what you need is income, then seriously consider it. Of course, laws/regulations may be different where you live. This is Texas. For good or for ill. <Steps down off soapbox.>
In the UK it’s required. Mainly because our estate agents are basically used car salesmen with no professional accreditations so the lawyer does all the conveyancing.
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In Massachusetts. Realtor helps finding the house & negotiating price. I hired an attorney to negotiate the other terms of the Purchase & Sales agreement.
The bank also has a closing attorney who actually does all the due diligence for the closing itself, and handles all the funds at closing. Since the buyer has to pay the fees for the closing attorney, the buyer gets some say in who they use - so I’ve had my P&S review attorney be the closing attorney as well.
Another New Yorker here. I did hire an attorney because it was the law. And I’m glad I did, because I knew nothing about the process. I wasn’t like most people who decided to buy a home and actively decided to look for one. I had been renting an apartment in an NY coop for years and my landlord decided to sell. He approached me first, with a good price that took into consideration that he wouldn’t need to hire a real actor, do renovations, etc. I negotiated a little bit more and we proceeded. No realtor, so I probably needed that attorney.
There were, IIRC, 5 attorneys at my closing. My attorney, the sellers attorney, the attorney from my bank, the attorney from the sellers bank and the building attorney. The last is specific to coop apartments, which are rare outside of New York City. But that little conference room was crowded,
Just wanted to comment on this and why it’s not for me. Comes down to location, basically.
I am moving later this year and I intend to rent out my apartment instead of selling it. It’s going to be a low profit pain in the ass venture, because even though I’m only 50% financed, the going rent for the area is only a few hundred bucks more than my monthly costs. So why don’t I just sell it?
Because, during the 15 years I have owned the place, the value has increased at an average rate of about $1500 a month. There is no sign of that slowing down, and when I look at my neighborhood there’s a good chance it might speed up. So if I deal with some hassle now, I can get a BIG boost to my retirement fund when I decide to sell in 10 years or so.
In Georgia a closing attorney is required by law. An attorney s the only person who can distribute settlement funds from a real estate deal. I didn’t hire them, per se, but the buyer and seller agree on one as part of negotiating the deal and the fees are part of the closing costs.
This is all very educational. In California I have never had a lawyer involved, only real estate agents. It appears that in other states there is a legal requirement to have a lawyer take on duties that are handled by the real estate agent in California.
Yes, because there was a weird situation with the title and in order to make sure that it was appropriately handled, I had an attorney do the handling.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have. It’s not really common here (WA).
I’ve done it both ways and once both ways on the same house. My MIL was in a nursing home and going downhill pretty steadily and we were selling her house under the POA and all “as is” to a neighbor of hers. And since this could have involved Medicare and all ---------- we just wanted to be seriously sure every “i” was dotted. We had a realtor handle the paperwork after having an attorney run through everything and look for any pitfalls.
In New Jersey we used a lawyer and a realtor, and closing was in the lawyer’s office. This was common practice.
In California we just used a realtor, and closing was in the office of the mortgage broker, also common practice.
When I sold my house myself, I used the family lawyer. He lived across the street. Other three times used a realtor. The last time it was a cash sale, easy Peasy.
Yes, because it was a private sale, no realtor involved.
Walked away from a different house, for many reasons, but one of them was the owner was doing it on the cheap. He was using his sister, a lawyer but not a RE lawyer. It’s scary when I know more than she did. That was just a symptom of he was doing things on the cheap, which caused wonder as to what else was (being) done half-assed.
Realtors, which in CA is pretty standard. However the team I used for both purchase and sale worked for a boutique firm than had an in-office attorney on staff.
Didn’t have a lawyer, but did have a realtor help us out as far as where to look, what we needed to look for, and generally guide us through the home-buying process.
Of course, it sure helped to have the realtor be someone who was doing it on the side (his day job was selling big-iron Sun UNIX servers to universities and research institutions), and who I knew before having him become my realtor, and that at the time, my wife was a practicing attorney.
I’ve bought and sold two co-ops in NYC, with a lawyer involved each time. It’s required, and co-op transactions are crazy complicated, so it’s a good idea. I also bought a house in Nevada and did not use a lawyer; my real estate agent did everything. My understanding is that in most of the western states, agents are empowered to handle transactions themselves.
But… question. What if there’s a complication with the deeds? What if some random boundary dispute crops up during the sale? What if a silent part-owner appears from under a rock? What if the kitchen extension didn’t comply with building regulations?
The reason lawyers are involved in the UK, is because buying a home is often a complex legal case.
In Virginia there are title agencies that seem to be lawyers and legal assistants. They seem to work closely with the real estate agents and they coordinate the sale/transfer for both the buyers and sellers, and handle the deed recording and things like that.
In Quebec you have to use a “notary”, a kind of minor league lawyer whose practice is limited to real estate transactions and wills. When I bought a house in Illinois, I used nobody. When I sold it I used a lawyer, wife of a colleague who charged me only $25. Not sure what I gained from having her, but it was cheap enough. The buyer pays the notary, BTW.
I used a Realtor but she was less than useless. I mostly dealt with the mortgage lender directly and she was a tremendous help. She answered any and every question I had. I basically had to call her to get answers as I could never get ahold of the Realtor. I think I only ever saw the Realtor for the showing, the offer and the closing.