Purchasing Real Estate

Are you interested in purchasing real estate? This can be a confusing for those who have never done it before. With the help of an experienced attorney, the whole process can go a lot smoother than going at it on your own. Here is what you need to know.

Purchasing Real Estate | Entering a Real Estate Contract

Entering a contract as the purchaser means you are making an offer to purchase a piece of property. This isn’t binding – until the seller signs. Upon receipt of your offer, the seller has the right to refuse outright, accept outright, or reply with a counter offer. An outright acceptance would make your contract legally binding. Likewise, if you accept the counteroffer, that counteroffer becomes a binding contract.

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Purchasing Real Estate | Steps Before Closing

• Attorney Appraisal– Attorneys for both parties have three days to review the contract. They can accept it outright, reject it outright, or offer a conditional approval, initiating negotiations.
• Home Inspection – The buyer’s home inspector will find the property satisfactory as-is, or list issues the buyer and seller need to address and negotiate.
• Title Examination– The seller gathers certain relevant documents, including a title search, survey, paid tax receipts, and mortgage statements, and provides them to their attorney who will update the title search and survey and send them to the buyer’s attorney. Once the buyer’s attorney reviews those title documents, he or she will undertake a title examination.
• Final Review– As soon as the title examination is completed, the buyer’s attorney forwards a title report to the seller’s attorney and the attorney for the bank. It will outline the documents required to complete the sale and circulate them back to the buyer’s attorney for final review before closing. During that process, the buyer works with the lender to get the loan cleared to close as soon as the title documents have been examined, all title deficiencies addressed, and the loan cleared to close. Then, the parties proceed to the closing table.

If you are purchasing real estate, please call our Buffalo real estate attorneys today to learn more about the process and see how our experience can help you.