Daniel Gershburg

Here is a small tip as to how you can tell if your attorney is paying any attention to your purchase or sale. Has the contract of sale been sent out within three days? Ask yourself that. If you hired an attorney, be it for a purchase or sale of a piece of property, and that attorney has not sent out/or corrected the contract within three days, it is this humble lawyers opinion that you should hire someone else. Seriously, the Contract of Sale of any piece of property should not take an attorney more than three days to look at (at the most). Most of the changes are to language that is already included in contracts that all attorneys use and have access to. The typical changes surround how much time a purchaser has to secure a mortgage, the date and the location of the closing, and any possession agreements (living in the house for a short time after a closing). Furthermore, if you are the seller or the purchaser, without that Contract of Sale being signed by both parties, technically no one is bound at all with respect to the property. In other words, without the Contract of Sale being signed, the seller can back out and so can the purchaser. So please heed my advice. If you find that you’ve retained an attorney and one week later no progress has taken place, you should consider hiring someone else.