Real Estate Attorney Services: Drafting Contracts And Negotiating Legally
For most home owners, their investment in their home is the largest investment in their lives. If you're looking to protect your investment, you need to minimize your risk by protecting yourself legally.
Here are some of the ways that a real estate attorney can help make sure that your contracts give you leverage and protection.
Negotiating
In today's real estate market, many deals are conducted entirely electronically. This shift from in-person to digital negotiating can create some hurdles, particularly when you're haggling over small details or terms.
- Contingencies: if the funding for a loan is contingent on selling another property or gaining access to more capital, your real estate attorney can make sure that you're protected from the other party. For instance, if you agree to buy home, but you need to sell another property to fund your loan, the seller can insert language into the contract to penalize you if your loan isn't funded by a certain date. These penalties can often be harsh and hidden in fine print. Before you e-sign a real estate contract with any form of contingency clause, make sure that your real estate attorney scours all the fine details for you. In some cases, you they can scale the penalties back or remove them all together.
- "As is": in some of the tighter real estate markets, home buyers often need to make quick decisions on properties they haven't even seen in person. In these situations, sellers often add "as is" clauses to contracts, which largely removes their responsibility for improving the safety and functionality of the property. Before you sign one of these contracts make sure that your real estate attorney adds language to the "as is" clause that holds the seller accountable for the description and basic safety of the property. For instance, if the seller describes a functional fireplace in the property's description, but you find that the fire place is not fictional, your real estate attorney can legal compel the seller to reduce the selling price or agree to fix it.
Drafting
If you're selling a home, you should always have a real estate attorney draft that protects you. For instance, if a buyer backs out of a deal, they may have cost you both time and money. Your real estate attorney can insert language into the contract that compensates you for both. This clause is most often inserted when the earnest money is offered into escrow.
If you're in the stages of drafting a contract, make sure you find a real estate attorney, like Souders Law Group, to give you advice.
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