Lawyer's Tasks
Just a quick question about what a lawyer is supposed to do in any purchase deal. Is the lawyer supposed to read the full inspection report? My lawyer says to me that I am to read the report and that he only reads the conclusions. He also says that I need to get the CofO…
Just a quick question about what a lawyer is supposed to do in any purchase deal.
Is the lawyer supposed to read the full inspection report?
My lawyer says to me that I am to read the report and that he only reads the conclusions.
He also says that I need to get the CofO situation reviewed by an architect.
So he does not much besides reading how many violations the building has or if CofO is ok or not.
Any clarifications welcome.
What is a good lawyer suppose to do?
I the real world we arranged ourselves for a professional inspector and reviewed the report with the assistance of my brother working for, who is a licensed architect and our secret weapon, so we were able to have all of the inspector’s recommendations already summarized to turn into deal points and feel confident that they were correct. With my brother’s assistance we added some additional conditions and Bevin helped us craft those into deal points.
http://causesof-divorce.com
thank you all for your very useful comments.
At what stage is the buyer suppose to read the contract sent to the lawyer by the
seller’s lawyer. After the revision or before?
You could fire your lawyer and go with one of the ones recommended above – a good lawyer should be doing a lot more than yours is.
However, no matter what lawyer you end up with, one thing we learned throughout the whole home-buying process is that ultimately no one will care as much about this purchase as you do, so it will behoove you to read everything, do your own research, and stay on top of things. Neither our agent nor our lawyer was very good, so we HAD to be overly involved, but we met other people in our building who thought they had good representation, but then missed obvious things in the offering plan, inspection report, or contract.
Your lawyer sounds like he/she sucks, but a lot of them do. If you’re paying them on a contingent fee basis (i.e. they only get paid when you close), then I’d say switch. However, if you’re paying by the hour or you’ve already paid a retainer, might as well stick with them and just be very vigilant about reading everything yourself. Even a bad lawyer will be very useful to you at the closing table.
A lawyer is essential, and their work will go well beyond the inspection. Your lawyer’s primary role is to protect your rights and defend your interest during the course of negotiation and sale. He/she should certainly take a look at your inspection report, but more importantly, your lawyer will help you negotiate any changes to your offer or actions you feel need to be taken due to findings in the report. They’ll also handle the enforcement of any contingencies in your contract (like a financing contingency), they’ll negotiate a mortgage extension if you need one, work with the bank to make sure you’re satisfying all the requirements for closing, and they’ll orchestrate the closing itself. Our lawyer was the indomitable Apryl Hand of Lewis & Hand in DUMBO, and I would highly recommend her. She’s outstanding.
We just closed on a two family investment property in Crown Heights and worked with Bevin Bermingham, who charged us a reasonable flat rate and did a lot of pragmatic and strategic work with us, in addition to a considerable amount of calming us down when the sellers were driving us nuts.
After going through several long months of what seemed like a very weird real estate system compared to other states where we have bought property, I can’t imagine doing a purchase in NY without a lawyer.
First of all, we didn’t really have an agent representing our interests but a sales agent connected to the seller, so she ended up doing what in our experience has been the work of a buyer’s agent.
Also so much of the communication in this deal went through the seller’s attorney, and not their real estate agent, that we had to have attorney to attorney communication.
We arranged ourselves for a professional inspector and reviewed the report with the assistance of my brother, who is a licensed architect and our secret weapon, so we were able to have all of the inspector’s recommendations already summarized to turn into deal points and feel confident that they were correct. With my brother’s assistance we added some additional conditions and Bevin helped us craft those into deal points.
Once we got the seller’s contract she reviewed it, made a bunch of revisions in our favor (some of which were accepted and some we let go after a couple of rounds of negotiation) and then she took our deal points and hammered out a rider with a number of extra conditions we wanted (which took about two or three back and forths with the seller’s attorney).
As the process went on for a few months while the sellers finished some work on the property per the rider, she made sure we had clear title, helped us make several strategic decisions as we waited for the sellers to satisfy some conditions, and even suggested a moving company for our incoming tenants.
Working with the excellent Adam Dahill of WCS Lending, she also helped us make sure we had all of the final loan docs in order, organized the closing, crafted an escrow agreement with a small amount of money held back for the sellers to make a few final repairs, and represented us at the closing today (we live out of state).
I hope that’s helpful. Not being a NY resident and having only bought property in other states, I was really skeptical that we needed a lawyer and now having gone through this I see how much we did.
I’d really recommend Bevin, by the way. She advertises here on Brownstoner, which is where I found her.