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Doctorcad said:
My wife does closings, has for 20 years.
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I have to say that your wife is is clearly biased by that statement alone. You no doubt gave her credentials to lend some weight to her opinion, but I'm afraid it has had just the opposite effect.



If my job were that of a closing agent, I too would prefer that lawyers not be involved. I can see how they can gum up the works, bad ones especially, and how my experience with bad real estate lawyers would have me paint them all with a broad brush stroke.



But that doesn't mean they don't have value to the overall process.



For example: If I were a general building contractor I would think that codes enforcement officers were pretty much useless too. But that doesn't make it necessarily so.



Clearly there is are adverserial roles at play, potentially, between the closing agent, the seller/selling agent, and the buyer and their attorney.



The link below describes just some of the reasons for using a real estate attorney and some of the services a good attorney will provide you:



TJR
 
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Wow, some really good advice here!



We are getting a home inspection and we will be closing with a lawyer.



The house has no basement, just a crawl space. The terminte, asbestos and radon tests are a great idea and we will look into those costs this week. I would really like to learn how old the duct work is, that was a great bit of advice. I also will look into the building code enforcement. We really want to build a larger garage in the next three years so this is a hot button for me. Once again, great advice!



I wish we could put 20% down but we just can't afford it. Not in this economy anyway. This is the property we've been waiting for. It's the perfect home for us right now and it's priced extremely low even by todays market standards. It was just appraised in Feb for $22,000 more than the accepted bid. They priced it for an extremely quick sale so they can continue their divorce and move on with their lives.







 
Home warranty is bad not because of the crappy coverage, but because it requires you to waive all your rights to sue in court, and instead you have to use the warrany co's arbitrators for everything- and you pay all the arbitrators' fees.



Home warranty only protects the seller or builder and real estate agents from lawsuits and their liability. It hardly protects the home owner at all for anything due to all the escape clauses. In fact, the home warranty actually HARMS the home buyer by waiving all their rights to court and and due process.



Lawyers are for getting you out of trouble after you have gotten in trouble. They are no good for keeping you out of trouble.
 
Gavin said:
Lawyers are for getting you out of trouble after you have gotten in trouble. They are no good for keeping you out of trouble.
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As a general opinion that seems like bad advice to me.



The same could be said of doctors; that they are only good for making the sick well, and not keeping the well from getting sick. Some think that about doctors, and never go to them unless sick, but most understand the value of wellness care.



There are many types of lawyers and areas of law. A good, general rule is to never sign any contract without having it reviewed by a lawyer. Of course it doesn't make sense in all cases. For example, why pay a lawyer $300 to review a contract related to a $500 debt. That wouldn't make sense at all. Most would simply risk it.



But paying a lawyer $300 to walk you through the legal matters and to safeguard your best interest when taking on $200k, or $300k (or more) of debt for the next 20 or 30 years; well that seems warranted to me.



TJR
 
I really really wanted a full basement that we could finish over time.



Do people ever...umm...add basements to their homes? Like brace the structure and escavate the earth under it and for a basement? That seems like an expensive idea.
 
A basement can be added to a home -- a friend of mine did this as part of an expansion to his house. The section he added on had a basement, but then they dug out the crawl space as well to put a basement under the existing section. But it aint cheap.
 
+10000 for having the plumbing tested thoroughly. When we bought our house here in Texas, we had the place inspected. Inspector said all the plumbing was fine, but our first week in the house, we started having issues. When my wife went to wash our first load of laundry, the sewer backed up into the bathtub. The house did not have a cleanout. We raised a stink (figuratively and literally) with the inspection company and the warranty company. All we got out of it was our inspection fees returned to us. Come to find out, the trees in the back yard had gotten into the sewer lines because the foundation had shifted and caused the lines to rot out. We have been in the house about six or seven years and we just this past year got all the sewer lines repaired.
 
Putting in a basement is an extremely large expense. Personally, I would never buy a house without a basement.





Tom
 
Both my family and my Fiance's family have had pretty bad experiances with basements and flooding in the area. I wanted one for the "man space" and she didn't really care. She wanted a second story and I didn't care.



Honestly, I can't see us adding a basement unless the market drastically improves and we can use our home equity. Otherwise it's just negative equity.
 
Caymen,



I have to agree with Caymen regarding a basement for a home in the northeast. Other parts of the country a basement is an oddity, and an added expense.



However, in the northeast I think it is a necessity if for no other reason than if built correctly (no leaking), the house will be more sound, structurally (because it's main foundation sits below the frost line), and it should be easier to heat and insulate (many homes with crawlspaces are poorly insulated and therefore have very cold floors.).



Not to mention the added value of having mechanicals (hot water heater, furnace) in a basement, and the added storage a basement provides.



I would have to say that the "single bathroom" and the "no basement" will likely drastically reduce the resale value/potential of this home. I would keep looking. It's a buyer's market.



TJR
 
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One other thought...



My cousin added a basement to his house. It was a "garage" basement, where there was only a 1/2 basement before (small, fieldstone walled basement under 1/2 the house, with very low profile).



He jacked up the house, had it all dug out underneath, put in a poured wall foundation with poured floor, with drain.



He did much of the work himself and with contractor buddies since he was in the home building profession.



This was 30 years ago. I'm sure it cost him thousands of dollars doing the work himself and by buddies. Today, would probably cost at least $50k, if not more...probably more, much more.



The work he had done was worth more than the house itself, but when all done, he then went through and re-did the whole house, area by area.



It can be done...but I doubt that anyone that is having the work done for them will EVER have it pay for itself, or even realize the value of the work, especially considering we are taking about a starter home.



For a starter home think of being in the house 5 to 10 years, and needing to sell without a loss (never be negative equity). That's probably not too hard a bet in this market (which should be near rock bottom), but as I said above, make sure that you only put in cosmetic updates at best, and you buy something that is easy to sell (at least 2 bathrooms, at least 3 bedrooms, at least 2000 sq ft, offstreet parking, curb appeal, etc).



TJR
 
You need to evaluate the savings when it comes to buying points on the mortgage. You'll need to know how much they'll reduce your rate and have an idea of how long you plan to keep the loan, you can then figure out your break even point and decide if they're worth buying.
 
I need a basement! Where else do you go if there's a Tornado Coming? Of course I might be a little paranoid than most, Luckily I've never had one destry my house, but I was less than a city block away from one when I was driving with my mom about 15 years ago. I can still picture it in my head...I've never seen my mom run 3 red lights or speed in her Chevy Corsica through MPLS, luckily there wasn't any cross traffic.
 
We plan to stay in this home for at least 5 years. It's likely we will be here about 10 years.



We don't really need a basement and prefer not to have one for the first home. With our past experiances...for us...it's just to risky for basment flooding that close to Lake Champlain.
 
I have no idea why this topic came up in my post...



I still don't see any benefit to paying a lawyer several hundred dollars to "review" documents that are ALWAYS THE SAME FOR EVERY CLOSING IN THAT STATE.



Just an opinion...



I like the home inspection only because it gives you a great list of things that need working on, generally the inspection will tell you what to fix first (safety issues) second (major issues) and third (cosmetic issues). If you get a good one, its worth every penny.
 
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Doctorcad said:



I still don't see any benefit to paying a lawyer several hundred dollars to "review" documents that are ALWAYS THE SAME FOR EVERY CLOSING IN THAT STATE.



Just an opinion...



I like the home inspection only because it gives you a great list of things that need working on, generally the inspection will tell you what to fix first (safety issues) second (major issues) and third (cosmetic issues). If you get a good one, its worth every penny.
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Do you know that to be true? Every financial institution and every home builder has exactly the same forms with exactly the same verbiage and legal clauses within each state? I tend to doubt that.



But even if true, you state that a home inspection is a good idea. Well, all home inspectors I have worked with guarantee the validity, accuracy and thoroughness of their inspection. You sign a contract with them stating that you understand what liabiility they assume and guarantee they offer. Those documents clearly are different from inspector to inspector and and from inspecting company to company.



Having a lawyer review those inspection documents and warranty contracts is a great idea. Wouldn't it be nice to know that your inspector assumes no real liability, or that their guarantee / warranty holds no legal weight BEFORE you have issues later?



I've heard many inspector horror stories that I'm fairly confident would have been avoided if a lawyer had looked over those dealings.



TJR
 
Again, the lawyers do not go over any documents.



The closing agent does all of that.



The lawyer is only there "just in case".



Not really important, but I only said that an inspection was a good thing (quote)...because it gives you a great list of things that need working on (end quote).



Counseler? Care to cross?
 
Doctorcad,



No cross needed. My real estate attorney reviewed everything I was going to sign the day before our closing. He even called me on the phone and told me of one document NOT to sign, and one document to only sign with an addendum he provided.



That's been my experience twice now during closings. If you have a lawyer that doesn't do that, then I agree, there are fewer (but still several) reasons to have a lawyer.



As for an inspection, if the only reason for an inspection is to get a list of things that need to be worked on, then again, a lawyer might be useful. A good lawyer will help in reviewing the sales contract should it have any stipulations of things that need to be fixed prior to close, or that won't be fixed but will yield price reduction allowances in lieu of fixing. Most people think the seller and the sales agent(s) can handle all those details. But often those things fall through the cracks, or aren't handled formally and legally, and that causes delays in closing. That happens ALL the time.



TJR
 

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