Do I Need A Lawyer to Help Me with my Residential Purchase and Sale?

There is another law firm in Regina that was doing a sponsored Facebook post advertising their services for helping through buyers and sellers through residential purchase and sales. They had some basic copy that asked “Did you know you need a lawyer for a real estate deal?” and some stock footage. I thought it was a fair ad of them trying to sell their services.  A solid local firm that I am happy to have on the other side of a real estate deal.

Then I saw the comments. (Never look at the comments, Marc).

70% of the responses were angrily commenting on the fact that you do not “NEED” a lawyer to complete your sale or purchase.  They were technically correct – you do not NEED a lawyer, on a real estate purchase and sale, unless:

• You need to clear something off the title – You have any sort of registration registered against the title for financing, debt, etc that needs to be discharged as part of the deal. Most people have mortgages. Lenders are taking longer and longer to discharge mortgages, even when paid.  Buyers want to make sure that the mortgage gets paid off, and lawyers use a combination of their professional obligations and their insurance to make sure that individuals get the titles that they expect.
• Someone else requires it – Arguably, the basic contract itself contemplates that each party is going to be represented. However, there are a number of other parties in the deal that may require it.  Financing for Buyers will have a number of solicitor conditions, even if they removed their financing conditions.  Either through the lender or the title insurer, they may want to reach out to opposing counsel to be comforted with the transaction.  If there is not counsel on the other side, it may prevent the deal from funding or from title insurance to be issued.  Realtors, if involved in the transaction, will want to ensure that they get paid.  They will want to ensure that lawyers are involved to ensure they get their commission.
• The buyer/seller does not want to be charged extra for dealing with you– no lawyer for the seller means that the buyer’s lawyer is going to need to do extra due diligence, and modify the deal structure to make sure the deal closes as it should. In the very rare occasion where I have a seen a deal with no lawyer on the vendor side, it has been a huge headache.  An average consumer does not understand regular steps that happen in common real estate transactions. They either have to be comfortable with more risk than they would have if they had a lawyer, or we have provide a bunch of time educating the other side and papering the deal.  If I have to spend a bunch of time, it is going to cost my client more, unfortunately.
• You have financing that requires a registration against the title to be purchased – It’s possible that by using an existing Line of Credit on a different property that you wouldn’t need the assistance of a lawyer. If you are using the property you are buying as security for the deal, the bank is going to need a lawyer involved.
• You are not comfortable doing all the relevant due diligence on the property – Tax searches, judgment searches, coordinating with relevant services providers. There is a lot that goes into the sausage of buying a house that doesn’t get seen. You likely will not hear about all of it, unless it triggers a negative response.

Even if these issues do not apply (and they will in most transactions), lawyers can still have a role in transaction to manage the risk for everyone.  Land titles is not instantaneous, and things can happen in the period that you are registering the title in the purchaser’s name.  Lawyers bring a protocol, professional obligations, risk management and supporting insurance to ensure that the deal proceeds as it should.

So do you “Need” a lawyer? No, unless you do.  Which is almost all the time.