A real estate lawyer is an attorney who specializes in real estate transactions and litigation. This involves helping clients negotiate purchases and sales, reviewing and organizing financing arrangements, obtaining land-use approvals, and litigating transactions that have gone wrong.

Types

There are two broad categories of real estate attorneys, including litigators and transactional attorneys. Transaction attorneys help clients make deals happen, while litigators help clients resolve problems when deals go bad.

Purchase Transactions

Transactional attorneys help clients buy and sell real estate. The lawyer reviews contracts and other paperwork, and helps negotiate new terms and conditions. The lawyer also reviews the legal condition of the property, including title, environmental, and governmental issues.

Financing

Real estate lawyers also help clients finance their real estate purchases. Again, the lawyer's primary role is to review paperwork to ensure legal compliance. This includes reviewing loan applications and contracts.

Title Search

One of the most important things a transactional real estate lawyer does is review and provide an opinion on the legal title of real estate. Title to real estate is often not 100 percent clear, so attorneys help clients understand where the risks are and what they should look out for.

Litigation

Many real estate deals go bad, for all kinds of reasons. Litigation attorneys help clients solve the problems by mediating, arbitrating and filing lawsuits. These litigation attorneys appear in court to represent their clients.

Source:

Real Estate Attorney Description