3 Things Your Real Estate Attorney Should Do At Closing

When you close on your home, we want you to celebrate afterward. This is a significant milestone in your life, and you’ve worked, sacrificed, and saved to get to the closing table. In addition to providing you with first-class legal services, we also want you to understand the process. When you work with us, you receive an engagement letter with a simple checklist that tells you what your attorney can (and cannot) do for you at closing.

Checking the Current Owner

We will verify who the current owner is and that they are on title. By going to the Register of Deeds, we can determine who owns the property you intend to buy. For example, imagine that you are buying a house. There are transactions in which a company’s name is on the title. Although this is common, your attorney should contact the Secretary of State to ensure the business is active and has legal authority to convey the deed to you.

Chain of Title

Depending on the circumstances of the home you are about to purchase, we will go back either for a specific amount of time or until the last title policy was issued to establish the chain of title. This verifies the owner and is also a way to check if any easements (someone else’s right to access your property) were granted or any other special considerations. Sometimes an owner will pass away, and the owner’s heirs are selling the property. When this happens, we review the estate file to determine who the heirs of the property are.

The Out Conveyances

This means looking at the grantor index in the Register of Deeds to determine if the property—or even a piece of the property—has even been conveyed to someone else. Without exaggeration, a title searcher may discover hundreds of out conveyances. For you to take clear title to the property, we also subsequently look for Deeds of Trust. Because these are used to secure loans, it tells us who the seller needs to repay for you to have a clear title.

Thomas & Webber Law at the Lake

When you work with Thomas & Webber Law at the Lake, we will send you a checklist that includes four other things we will do for you at closing—all of which are to protect you and your interests when buying your home. Our goal is to give you the knowledge you need to complete a real estate transaction successfully. Contact us to schedule your consultation.