My real estate lawyer for home closing was suggested to me by my mortgage company. He told me he has worked with this lawer in the past and he is good. I took the lawyer. I then had a problem with the mortgage company. The company was negligent in missing my closing date. When I asked the lawyer about having to possibly open a lawsuit against the mortgage company, the lawer said he could not as he represented both myself and the bank. Is this the usual practice for a closing lawyer to represent both parties.
Your lawyer is involved with an actual conflict of interest, which is never a good thing! Did you know about this and consent to it? You need another lawyer who will handle both the real estate matter and the issue of the conflict of interest.
You need a real estate agent and you need an attorney. First you need to know who the real estate agent represents. They could be representing the seller and in that case they could not be working in your best interest. They could be representing both the seller and buyer and merely doing the paperwork and not looking out for either of your interests, they are in that case merely facilitators. If you asked for an attorney, they suggested theirs to you which sounds to me like both the mortgage company and the attorney are on the seller's side if you are the buyer...and no one is on your side. You need to hire your own attorney to represent you. To answer your question....you need to saavy when you buy a house (or sell a house) so that you are protected. Get yourself a real estate attorney. If you don't know one then call your county bar association and ask for an appointment with a real estate attorney who also could sue a negligent mortgage company for missing a closing date. Then talk that out at your appointment. Sure, only one side can be represented in a deal. It's done. But, you need an attorney to protect you and now you found out why that is.
According to Massachusetts state laws, an attorney must be present during any real estate closing. The real estate lawyer does not have to be appointed by the bank, however, as the law does allow for the parties involved to hire their own closing attorney. But real estate attorneys do much more than just show up at closing. Now, some of them are allowed to handle the entire sale from Offer to Buy to Closing.
Your closing attorney is merely the middle man in this home purchase. He can not represent you any more than he can represent the bank/lender against you. All closing agents whether it is an attorney that does the closing or as in my state we use escrow as our closing agents on all real estate transactions simply act as the middle man between the buyer and seller and mortgage company to ensure that all the legal things required by the state are properly done. They are not your personal attorneys. The mortgage company is the one that you have the beef with they are the one that caused you to miss your closing date. If you want to take legal action against the mortgage company you would have to hire an attorney that handle civil or corporate cases. Closing dates are normally a date that both parties would like to close on. These dates are not normally written in stone. You should not get excited because there was a delay. This is normal in most real estate transactions. You should call the mortgage company, find out what the new closing date is then go from there. I hope this has been of some use to you, good luck. FIGHT ON
