Real Estate is a tricky game to get right. Master it and you could make your millions – but fail and you might become homeless yourself! With such high prices involved, it is important that you get to grips with legal issues involved in buying and selling real estate, before you get involved. This is especially true if you plan to buy and renovate, which comes with added risks of construction injury liabilities, warn Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers.
Let’s delve into our list of unknown legal issues that buyers and sellers of real estate regularly suffer the bad end of. Maybe if we spread awareness, we can stop it happening to you.
Legal Issues Most Real Estate Firms Don’t Know About
There are a few legal problems that fall under the banner of things real estate firms don’t know about. Let’s go over each one in detail.
Legal Problems Can Halt a Sale
First of all, let’s examine exactly why it is that you need to be aware of all the legal issues involved before you get into the buying or selling real estate game. Usually, there are lots of parties involved in the buying and selling process. This means lots of paperwork. Every sheet of paper will potentially cost you money – so you don’t want to repeat yourself.
With all this in mind, here are some of the top considerations you should make before you commit to buy or sell.
Vested Interests
It may be that a person not involved in the purchasing or selling of the house needs (and has a right to) access to and from the buildings. It might be a shared garage, it might be a mineral deposit interest, it could even be that they are an ex-partner of the former owner who still needs access. Whatever the reason, you need to check for this before you close a deal on the house.
Why? The third party that has access to the area will still need to come and go. They may even have the legal right to do so. It is your duty to check for this before you commit to buying.
Non-Disclosure
Some properties might have problems with the building, the land, or other areas of the property. A less-than-righteous real estate seller cannot legally hide this from you… but they might still try. They will use every trick in the book to attempt to thwart any surveys or visits you make before you commit to buy.
In this instance it makes things difficult in two ways. One is that you might get swindled and, although not strictly legal, it isn’t strictly illegal either. You are in a legal grey area and you will likely suffer for it. Always get a survey done. Not just because it is hard to get a property loan otherwise – but just in case you buy a place and it falls down when you put the key in the lock.
IT Technicalities
If there is even the smallest computer crash in any of the offices, then data will be lost, and you will need to start again. Worse, if there is a data breach you could be liable for stolen information. It crimes cost more than $445 Billion USD annually. IT might happen to your clients – and if it does you could be liable.
Finally, you Cannot Discount the Eagerness of Fools
Some agents are just downright incompetent. If you run into one of these types, you should run in the opposite direction. They can halt, slow down, or scupper a sale entirely. They can even give a client bad advice and ruin everybody’s day. Don’t’ be an incompetent agent. Follow our advice and never miss a sale again!
