[quote=njtosd]. . . 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.[/quote]Excellent post, nj! I agree that it can be a minefield out there for the CA homebuyer, especially one who thought they could get their offer taken more seriously by engaging the listing agent of their desired property as their own agent (“dual agency,” which should have been banned in CA long ago).
