Attorney Approvals- GET THEM

A Real Estate Salesperson/Broker is there to assist you with the purchase of Real Estate. But that is not the only person who will be involved, so it is important to know who is handling what part of the transaction.

As a buyer, once your offer is accepted by the seller, the first several days after acceptance are very important to make sure things are being handled properly to avoid any issues arising in the future. For the purposes of this blog we will focus on the attorney approval.

To help, I will use a recent situation a client of mine(let’s call them BOB) ran into that caused them to lose out on a great investment property. Bob contacted me about an investment property, we set up a showing and went over offer options and whatnot. We settled on the details and part of the offer was that Bob wanted an inspection done, no problem. I submitted the offer for Bob which was accepted. Great News! Now to schedule the inspection. Bob had an inspector lined up which was great and made it easy to get scheduled within 3 days. Bob and I attended the inspection and he conveyed to me that everything looked good.

Then I didn’t hear from Bob for 3 days. At this point, we needed to either wave the inspection contingency or submit a request for repairs or renegotiations. But without the consent of the buyer who I represent, I cannot make any decisions for them. After not hearing back I reached out to the attorney Bob had told me he planned to use. The attorney responded that they would not be approving the contract.  So now the contract is void and Bob no longer has the house under contract.

Bob reached out to me a day later to say he was still interested in the house but wants to renegotiate due to an old boiler. At this point he no longer has the house under contract, so the listing agent put it back active. We then wrote up a new offer with terms in regards to the boiler. However, the market being as active as it has been, the seller received multiple cash offers above Bobs price, thus losing out on the investment.

The point being, talk to your representative. Had Bob talked to me, we would have been able to negotiate in regard to the boiler without canceling the contract. The house would not have gone active and not received additional offers. Bob would have had an investment property under the asking price to add to his portfolio, which in this market is rare.

Attorney Approval is a very important step in the process, but understand how and when to use it.