RE Laywer & Building Financials
Buying for the first time and have heard that it’s good to have a lawyer go over a building’s financials. Since I’m at the very beginning (just started to look), do I hire an RE lawyer now? How did other people go about handling this? Appreciate any advice!
Buying for the first time and have heard that it’s good to have a lawyer go over a building’s financials. Since I’m at the very beginning (just started to look), do I hire an RE lawyer now? How did other people go about handling this? Appreciate any advice!
lawyers are involved in NYC because the transaction is more complicated than in other parts of the US.
Very interesting and excellent question Putnamdenizen.
If I can afford NY real estate I can also afford a manicure, but I don’t have one at a closing.
Why is it then that lawyers aren’t involved elsewhere in the country? What is it about New York real estate which demands a lawyer, but you don’t need one in Philadelphia?
It would be stupid to not have a real estate lawyer regardless of the law. What planet are you all from? It’s not that expensive. If you can afford NY real estate, you can afford a NY lawyer.
So it’s not a legal requirement to have a lawyer involved in a closing?
Of course you should use a lawyer who specializes in real estate. What I was commenting on was the rather farcical comment that THE LAW requires that you to use a REAL ESTATE lawyer, as though a real estate lawyer is someohow certified by the state as such. Most of us lawyers learn by doing (I am a criminal defense lawyer). I still haven’t seen any cite to the legal (as opposed to practical) requirement that you use a lawyer at all. Certainly in other jurisdictions there is no lawyer involved in a real estate transaction (nor that weird “closer” who I was told I had to tip at my last closing). Seems to me about the time we get a real MLS in Brooklyn we might begin to start reducing the complexity of real estate transactions. Maybe if we had buyer’s agents we could get rid of lawyers.
Lots of folks try to “save” money by having a friend or relative who is a lawyer, but not specialized in real estate law, do their closings. It is a huge mistake.
Putnamdenizen, etc: Common sense dictates that you’d use a real estate lawyer for a real estate transaction, no? Just like I would not go to an obgyn if I thought I had a brain tumor.
You don’t need a CPA