Most people meet a real estate attorney once, holding a contract on the largest purchase of their life, with no particular reason to trust anybody else in the room.
The listing agent, the buyer's agent, the lender and the title company all get paid when the deal closes. That does not make any of them dishonest. It does mean the only person whose job is to represent your interests, including the interest in not closing, is the one you hire yourself. On the simplest sale that costs very little. On a complicated one it is the whole ballgame.
01
We review the purchase agreement before you are bound by it, work through issues the inspection raises, read the title commitment, prepare or review the closing documents, and represent you through the closing itself. An inspection finding is a negotiation, not an emergency, and it is one you should not be running yourself against an agent who does this every week.
02
We review the listing agreement, negotiate the sale contract, order and read the title commitment, prepare the deed and the remaining closing documents, and represent you through closing. Sellers often assume their agent has the legal side handled. The agent's job is to sell the house. Different job, different interests.
03
How a property is titled decides what happens to it when an owner dies, marries, divorces or is sued, and it is set by a document most people sign without reading. Because this firm also handles estate planning, that question gets asked at the closing, not years later when it is expensive to fix.
04
Not every transfer is an arm's length sale with a bank behind it. Sales between family members, transfers into a trust, land contracts, and buyouts after a death or a divorce all carry their own problems, and they are the ones where doing it informally tends to cost the most later.
The same order every time, because most of the expensive mistakes in this area come from doing step four before step two.
You send the purchase agreement. We tell you what is unusual, what is negotiable, and what to leave alone.
Findings turned into a written request with a number attached, instead of a conversation that drifts.
The commitment ordered and read, exceptions cleared where they should be, deed and closing package prepared or reviewed.
We are there, or on the call, and the money does not move until the paperwork is right.
You are not required to have one. Whether you want one depends on the transaction: a straightforward sale with a conventional loan is different from a land contract, a family transfer, a property with a title problem, or a purchase you are making through an entity.
Before is better. Once the contract is fully signed, the terms you agreed to are the terms you have, and changing them stops being a negotiation and becomes a request.
It depends on the transaction, which is why no figure is printed here. You will be given a number before you engage the firm, not afterward.
No. The buyer and the seller want different things out of the same contract, so one attorney cannot properly represent both.
The contract if there is one, the listing, and the inspection report if it exists. If none of those exist yet, the address and the question are enough.
Estate planning is deciding who receives what, who decides for you if you cannot, and how much of it has to pass through a courtroom. Most of it is simpler than people fear.
A commercial deal is a legal document sitting on top of a building, a loan and a title history. The document is the part people read. The other three are where the money usually goes.
Probate is administration, not conflict, most of the time. Somebody has to be authorised to act, the assets have to be gathered, the debts have to be dealt with, and the rest has to reach the right people.
The rest of the practice is on the practice areas index. If you would rather judge the firm by who trusts it than by how it describes itself, look at who it works for or at who would actually be handling this.
Call 765-423-1001 to schedule an appointment, or send the details through. Bring the contract, the deed, or just the question.
Contacting Gambs, Mucker & Bauman does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Please do not send confidential information until a written engagement is in place.