[quote=La Jolla Renter]I pretty much put myself in the I hate lawyers camp.
The good ones I know and a few others I call good friends even hate lawyers. They claim the legal system is broken and completely dysfunctional.
The best advice I ever got from a lawyer/friend was don’t ever ever ever rent to or sell a house to a lawyer. Unfortunately, after hearing this rule many times for 10+ years, I violated it once, and it was a very costly mistake.[/quote]
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I agree there is much dysfunction. American citizens have more access to the legal system than citizens of any other country, largely as the result of the availability of what are called contingency fees. Most people don’t realize that the contingency system, which in the United States allows for people to secure legal representation in exchange for signing over a portion of the ultimate award of damages, is not available in many other countries. European attorneys are hundreds if not thousands of dollars an hour so only the very wealthy have access to attorneys. I believe that fact perpetuates the stratification of society in those countries.
The availability of the contingency system here gives rise to a lot of abuse but it also levels the playing field. Corporations are less likely to break the law because they know there’s some lawyer out there who would be willing to represent a client even if that client doesn’t have a lot of money . The legal profession is like any others-there are those who are good and ethical and there are those who are bad and dishonest. The stakes are higher though when dealing with attorneys than, for example, plumbers.
I was once told that IP attorneys (such as myself) had a very low rate of ethical violations and malpractice claims-however this was at a time when all IP lawyers were generally registered patent attorneys (mostly engineers and chemists who had gone to law school). These days anyone who’s ever filed a trademark application claims to be an IP attorney and therefore that generalization may have changed.
In terms of selling houses to lawyers-I guess it depends on where you want to sell houses. I would estimate 1/10th of the houses in our general vicinity got sold to lawyers, and all seems well. If you would prefer to cut out that portion of potential buyers that’s certainly up to you . Our worst experience trying to purchase a house was from a real estate agent 🙂 . We discovered after entering into the contract that she, in fact, did not actually have title to the house. It had been transferred (as I recall) to an irrevocable trust for her adult children. Had she not been a real estate agent, I might have assumed it was accidental, however in this case I’m sure it was not. She wanted free assistance in getting her ex-husband out who was squatting in the house and figured she would work out the details later.
For most people the purchase of their home is the single largest legal and financial commitment they will take on other than their children. I would never recommend that a non-attorney enter into such a significant contract without representation of his or her own whether the other party to the contract was a lawyer or not. In the case of a nonlawyer contracting with a lawyer, it’s clear that the lawyer has the home-court advantage and you are correct that you enter in to such dealings (unrepresented) at your own peril. Had you hired attorney of your own, as is done in most other states, perhaps it would have gone more smoothly. When it comes to such significant transactions as houses, I am surprised that Californians rely exclusively on brokers/agents who I feel can have a conflict of interest and generally don’t have much experience with the issues that arise in litigation over real estate contracts. More importantly, attorneys get paid whether you buy a house or not so they have less incentive to downplay the negative aspects of the property.
When we first moved here my husband’s company reimbursed up to $1000 in attorneys fees in connection with the purchase of our home. We wanted to talk to one just to see whether there was anything we would not have been aware of ( having moved from outside of California). We did this even though both of us are attorneys. He was able to provide us with a lot of interesting information about developers who were in financial difficulty, issues associated with canyon view lots, problematic areas of the California Association of realtors purchase agreement and a lot of other info. In retrospect we would’ve done it even if we had to pay for it ourselves. It was less than $1000 which represented a fraction of a percent of the purchase price. Well worth it in my opinion.
