3 Things A Real Estate Attorney Does To Help You Buy Property

Are you thinking about buying a piece of real estate? Have you been assuming that you just need to pay enough money and the property will be yours? While this is essentially true, the reality is that it can also be a good idea to hire an attorney to help you with your purchase. This is not only essential when you're buying a single-family home, but it's also necessary if you're going to be buying anything larger, such as a piece of commercial property. It may seem like an unnecessary expense, but there are a number of reasons why you should get an attorney to help you, including:

Title search: Some pieces of property can have disputed ownership, but this isn't something that's going to be obvious just by looking at the property itself. A real estate attorney can investigate the ownership of the property to ensure that the person who is selling the property actually has the rights to do so. If it turns out that the property is actually partly or fully owned by someone else entirely, your attorney can also act on your behalf to make an offer to buy the property from the true owner. 

Purchase contract: If the property needs work and the other side agrees to do this work before you take ownership, a real estate attorney will help to ensure that the purchase contract is favorable to you. For instance, you may want the current tenants to be required to leave before you purchase the property; without the assistance of an attorney, the purchase contract could be worded ambiguously so that you are the one who has to deal with the eviction instead of the current owners. This could leave you on the hook for having to return a rental deposit or for dealing with damage caused the tenant. 

Inspections and appraisals: In order to be sure that the property you're purchasing is both safe and worth what you'll be paying for it, your real estate attorney will arrange for various inspections and an appraisal of the property as a whole. Depending on the type of property that you're buying and the lender you're using, some inspections may be required and some may be optional. The actual appraisal is almost always a requirement, no matter what type of property you're buying. Your attorney can help you to decide which, if any, optional inspections you might want to have done anyway before you decide to purchase the property.