Law Office of Diane H. Gold


	The Law Office of	Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Serving Eastern Mass
	Diane H. Gold

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FAQs - Real Estate
	The following Frequently Asked Questions will address the most common questions about Real Estate. Please feel free to email or call us if you have other questions.
	Q.	Why do I need a lawyer when I buy or sell real estate?
	Q.	When buying real estate, doesn’t the bank attorney represent my interests, too?
	Q.	What is title insurance? Why is it important?




	Q.	Why do I need a lawyer when I buy or sell real estate?
	A.	A lawyer can help you to understand the process of buying or selling real estate more completely than even your real estate broker, if you have one. A lawyer can also help to negotiate the purchase and sale agreement (the contract you sign when buying or selling property). While the standard purchase and sale agreement used in Eastern Massachusetts has many of the provisions you want in the contract, a lawyer can help to add provisions to the contract you may not have even considered, such as an automatic extension of the closing date in case the lender is not prepared in time.
	Q.	When buying real estate, doesn’t the bank attorney represent my interests, too?
	A.	Often, the lender’s (bank) attorney does also represent a buyer of real estate. While this may save you some money (the bank attorney may discount fees for review of the purchase and sale agreement), if a problem arises between you and your lender, the attorney may have a conflict between two clients and may have to withdraw from representing both sides. While this does not occur very often, it is wise to hire an independent attorney to represent you when buying real estate.
	Q.	What is title insurance? Why is it important?
	A.	Title insurance is a type of insurance that protects the insured against anything a title examiner may miss when reviewing the title of a particular property. In Massachusetts, the land records go back more than two hundred years. In that time, it is possible that title to the property you are buying may have been conveyed (sold) fraudulently, that a mortgage may not have been properly discharged, or that the boundaries of the property were improperly transcribed from one deed to another. In any of these cases, title insurance can protect you if another person or company argues that the property or any part thereof is not yours. Your lender will require you to buy title insurance that protects the lender. This policy of title insurance, however, does not protect you. It only protects the lender for the life of the loan. In order for you to be protected, you must purchase your own “owners policy” of title insurance which protects your interest in the property as long as you own your home and do not give parts of it away or convey it to a trust.

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