Real Estate Lawyers: directory of firms

In attorney closing states, a lawyer prepares or reviews the deed, conducts or supervises the closing and handles the escrow. That is a rule about who may act, not a customer preference, and the Georgia advisory opinion is the clearest statement of the reasoning: because executing a deed of conveyance is needed to close most transactions, a non-lawyer doing it is practising law without a licence.

In title and escrow states, a settlement company coordinates the closing, issues the title commitment and disburses funds, and buyers often never meet a lawyer. That works well for a standard purchase. It works badly when the title search turns up a problem, when a seller will not complete, or when the contract needs a term the standard form does not have.

Practice also varies inside a single state by county custom. The reliable move is to ask the lender or agent early who will conduct settlement in that county, and whether an attorney is required or merely available.

Most last-minute closing failures come from title rather than from money. Unreleased mortgages, contractor liens, unpaid property taxes, an heir who never signed, an easement nobody mentioned, or a legal description that does not match the fence line are ordinary findings, and each has a different cure.

Boundary and access problems are worse after closing than before it. An encroaching driveway, a shared well, a right of way used for decades without a recorded easement or a structure built over a setback can all limit what you may do with the land. Some are fixed by an agreement recorded at closing, some by title insurance, and some only by a quiet title action in the county court.

The CFPB explains that title insurance can protect you if someone later sues and says they have a claim against the home from before you purchased it. The lender's policy protects the lender's interest for the amount of the loan; an owner's policy is what protects your equity, and it is usually optional and separately priced.

The policy covers defects existing at the time of purchase, not problems that arise afterwards, and every policy has exceptions listed in its schedule. Those exceptions are the part worth reading, because they describe precisely what the insurer is declining to cover, which is often the easement or survey issue your lawyer should be negotiating about before closing.

What a seller has to reveal is state law, and the statutes differ in both scope and consequence. Some states require a detailed written disclosure form covering everything from roof age to flooding history, some impose a general duty to disclose known material defects, and remedies for getting it wrong range from rescission to damages.

Transfer taxes, recording requirements, whether the state uses mortgages or deeds of trust, and how quickly a foreclosure can proceed are all local too. So is the mechanism for transferring property at death, which is why deed choices made at purchase, such as how co-owners take title, deserve a conversation at the time rather than a default filled in by whoever prepared the form.