Resent-Message-Id: <8707231501.AA01146@bk.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 87 09:06:51 EDT
From: mauney@ece-csc.ncsu.edu (Jon Mauney)
Posted-Date: Tue, 21 Jul 87 09:06:51 EDT
Message-Id: <8707211306.AA05259@ece-csc.ncsu.edu>
To: bjz@sei.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Buying a new house
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
In-Reply-To: <1942@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Resent-To: bovik@spice.cs.cmu.edu
Resent-From: Barbara.Zayas@sei.cmu.edu
Resent-Date: Thursday, 23 July 1987 11:01:30 EDT

The major benefit of hiring a lawyer is that said lawyer
will be the only professional present at closing who is
legally paid by you and thus acting as your agent.  All realtors
are acting in the interest of the seller, and the banks of course
look out for themselves.  If there are any glitches in the paperwork,
only your lawyer can be expected to point out where your interest lies.
If anything later turns out to be to your disadvantage, you can't
expect relief from the seller, realtor or bank unless there is fraud.
But you can always charge your lawyer with malpractice for not
bringing it to your attention.

Around here it is the custom for the buyer's lawyer to do the title search,
arrange the title insurance, order the survey, prepare the documents,
and act as the middle man in accepting money and passing it out to
the various recipients.  Apparently that is not the custom in your area.
You probably don't really need a lawyer if the transaction is straightforward,
but a couple hundred dollars in extra fees is cheap insurance on the
price of a house.

Good luck,

-- 
Jon Mauney	 Computer Science	 North Carolina State University
     ...!mcnc!cscadm!mauney  or mauney@cscadm.ncsu.edu