Residential Real Estate Closings

Park Ridge Real Estate Closing Attorneys

Buyers and sellers of residential real estate in the six-county Chicago metropolitan area use lawyers for closings, rather than real estate brokers or title agents. Even if an attorney were not required, there is a benefit of having an attorney in the room when you are spending upwards of a quarter of millions dollars on a home. Everyone in the room at a real estate closing has a vested interest in the transaction. It only makes sense to retain an attorney to represent your interests.

Our real estate closing attorneys represent home buyers and sellers. We charge the same price whether you are the buyer or seller: about $600. People generally buy a new house fairly soon after selling their old house, and if our lawyers handle the closings for both properties  we charge $550 per closing.

Our lawyers also provide title insurance. One of the advantages of having us write your title insurance is that a lawyer will review the raw data behind the title search. While it happens rarely, we do occasionally find problems in the title search. In one case, our client wished to sell his condo on the third floor of a building. We found out that he actually owned a condo on the second floor. In another case, we found that a wedge of land inside his fence, which had been mowing and paying taxes on for years, was not included on his property survey. In this case, our client gained ownership of the property through adverse possession.

The most important thing in any real estate transaction is owning clear title to the property you are buying. Without a thorough title search, you can inherit problems of the previous owner. An assurance of clear title is part of what you get for our $600 fee.

We invite you to contact real estate closing attorney Thomas A. Jefson to schedule a consultation.