purplemama Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 My hubby and I are going to sell our home to his brother. We do not know if there is a way to get all the legal forms we need filled out and then just have a lawyer look them over or should we just start out with a lawyer to being with. I have checked on uslegalforms.com and they have a home sales package for $40. Any help would be appreciated. We don't want to throw money out the window unnecessarily. If we can do this ourselves, we would like to. Thanks! Jennifer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 I would just call a real estate lawyer - they should be able to tell you their fee up front. If you already have a buyer, you do not need a realtor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettyL Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 We sold our house to friends and used an inexpensive form purchased at Office Max for the contract. The buyers applied for financing and the mortgage company did the closing. They contacted us to transfer the water and electric and figure out the taxes etc. It was a wonderful experience! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 We used a lawyer. We sold the house to a friend. Our friend had a real estate agent and they gave us a contract. Our lawyer showed us where it wasn't in our favor and changed it for us, so it was fair to everyone. He charged about $300 or so for looking over the contract and going to closing with us. He also found 3 errors on the paperwork at closing and had them re-do it for us. They kept sighing when he said, "Here's an error. Please fix it." He was polite, but they didn't want to have to fix the error and reprint it. I was glad he was there. He didn't let them get away with being sloppy. It was a nice experience. No pressure from a real estate agent. No thousands of dollars taken from the sale of the house to a real estate agent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purplemama Posted April 25, 2010 Author Share Posted April 25, 2010 Thanks for the input. I don't think a decent fee for paperwork is unreasonable and if they will come to the closing that is great. We have a friend who is a real estate lawyer, but he lives about two hours away. I couldn't ask him to come here for a closing. However, he may recommend someone local. I thought this might be as simple as I hoped it would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gooblink Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 We picked up the book "How to Sell Your Home in Five Days" and we did it! It actually took us more like 2 weeks to finalize everything, but the system worked for us on a house and we repeated it again with a car. We didn't hire a lawyer or a realtor, but we do have a pretty firm grasp of contract language and read every line carefully. I do recommend hiring a lawyer if you're uncomfortable with contracts. The second house we sold was quite a bit more expensive, so we paid a realtor a stipend to list it in the MLS. He provided a sign, an 800# and a lockbox and I think we paid him $275. Again, no lawyer, but everyone might not be comfortable with that. (And we may have been more fortunate, than wise. ) Best wishes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 We sold our house ourselves about 6 years ago in the height of the real estate boom. It wasn't difficult. Our house had several offers, so there wasn't much to negotiate. The title company does most of the work. I think what helped us is that dh is an engineer and he read every single form and disclosure and everything and knew what he needed to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Jo Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 We sold ours about 5 years ago to some family friends. They had a contract from the bank (I believe). It was pretty standard. The title company handled a lot of that stuff too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purplemama Posted April 25, 2010 Author Share Posted April 25, 2010 So maybe I should start with the title company? We can use the same one that handled our house when we bought it. I will call them tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoyfulMama Posted April 26, 2010 Share Posted April 26, 2010 We sold our house to dh's brother a couple years ago. A friend works for a title company, and we had her handle everything for the closing. We had to pay those fees (standard closing fees, title search, etc), and bil had to pay his loan origination fees, but that was it. I would contact the title company you worked with before - great place to start! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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