We can all agree that Realtors are necessary and serve a valuable service.  I would never suggest anyone buy or sell a property without one.  A good realtor will be well informed about the market and about their buyer or sellers needs and desires.  But is it a good idea to take legal advice from a realtor?  Never.

Over the years, I have encountered some great examples of very poor legal advice provided by Realtors.  And the advice always has the same consequence – if the buyer took action and didn’t follow the Realtors advice, the closing might get delayed.  Or a problem may be brought to the surface that was otherwise buried.

My all time favorite bad advice from a realtor – “You don’t need an inspection because the house is brand new!”  Predictably, the client spent $800,000.00 of their hard earned money without spending an additional $500 on an inspection.  The result – a severe undiscovered mold issue.  This issue ended up costing my client tens of thousands of dollars to get resolved, not to mention the time and hassle involved.

My second all time favorite bad advice from a realtor has two parts, but the first part is the same – “You don’t need a survey, because … the property is just vacant land …. or, the property has a fence on it.”  I do laugh when I hear the fence comment.  I guess the logic here is that no one would ever put a fence on a property unless they had a survey.  Or better yet, maybe the fence company also did the survey.

Attorneys who practice in the area or real estate serve a very valuable purpose – and that purpose is to protect their clients’ interest in the closing process.  If you want your transaction to be successful, never take legal advice from someone other than a real estate attorney.