Do Yourself a Favor and Hire a Real Estate Lawyer

If you are in the process of finalizing a real estate transaction, you may want to hire a real estate lawyer. It can be challenging trying to make heads or tails out of what any documents say. This is why you need a professional that can assist you with your transactions. They can give you guidance that will protect your interests. Keep in mind that the process of buying and selling can legally binding so you need someone on your side that has a vested interest in your cause. In order to prevent you from becoming the victim of malpractice, you need to hire a real estate lawyer.

You may think that you can hire any type of attorney if you have disputes and other issues that require you to have legal representation. Since the laws regarding real estate are so diverse and complex, you don't want to rely on the expertise of a general attorney. You need a real estate lawyer who is knowledgeable about the laws regarding your transactions and well versed in handling cases that are similar in nature to yours. You never know when you are going to need their help getting a hold of certain documents. Laws change often and you need someone who is abreast each and every change so you will know how it may affect you. You don't want to be someone who is trying to complete a transaction using outdated information. Your real estate lawyer can help to reduce your risk and help you protect your financial investment.

It doesn't matter what your role is. Whether you are going to be the buyer or the seller, you are going to need documents to help put together any propositions, deals, contracts and other documents that may be required for you to gain possession of the title.

You need someone who is skilled at looking over all the documents regarding the sale and purchase of any purchase. The person you hire to review all of the paperwork needs to be someone that represents your interests. Even if you have been working with a real estate agent, but your agent cannot legally give you legal guidance. You still need a professional whose job is to look over property transaction documents and make sure that you understand everything that is in question and to make sure that the paperwork has acceptable terms for you.

If you find yourself in doubt as to whether or not a transaction is being done in accordance with the law, you can always go to your attorney for guidance. They are there to make sure you don't enter into any illegal or unattractive legal contracts. If there is something in any contracts you don't agree too, they can provide you with revisions to help make the document more attractive for you. Before you complete any real estate transaction, hire a real estate lawyer to do a complete inspection of all legal documents.

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Estate Planning - 5 Life Changes That Call for an Estate Plan Review

Forbes Magazine recently ran an article entitled, "Five Life Events That Require an Estate Planning Review."

Here are the 5 life events Forbes listed that may trigger a need to review your estate plan.

1. Getting married

2. Divorce or death of a spouse

3. Purchasing or refinancing a home

4. New accounts

5. Children changes

The basic document of every estate plan is a revocable living trust.

A revocable living trust is a very flexible document. If you have the wording just right, you won't have to do much changing, if any.

Let's take Children Changes for example:

You can say in your trust that you are going to cover all of your children, whoever they are, as of the time you pass away.

Or, if you are already past childbearing age, and you are now looking at having grandchildren, you can declare that all of your grandchildren will be beneficiaries.

You do not have to name all of them, and you don't have to change your trust or your will every time your family grows by another child.

What about purchasing or refinancing a home -- or getting a new account?

You don't have to change your will or your trust every time you change an account or when you buy a house.

But what you do have to do is put them in the proper title.

The title of a property, for example, needs to be put in the name of your trust, if you have a trust.

And the title on an account-usually an investment account, needs to have your revocable living trust as the holder of that account.

Sometimes the beneficiary on a retirement account can be the trust.

If you get a new account, simply make sure you add it to the trust.

That does not require a lawyer.

Your lawyer should give you a packet with instructions on how to do that yourself. Just make sure you show the Certification of Trust to the person opening the account or setting up the title to your property and make sure that title gets in the name of your trust.

Marriage and Divorce

Marriage and divorce are two reasons why you might really need to have a review and to change things in your will or your trust.

This is because if it says that you are going to appoint your spouse to be your health care power of attorney to make medical decisions for you, or if they are going to be the trustee of your trust, you are going to have to change that if you get divorced.

Or if you are single when you create your trust and you get married, you may want to appoint your spouse to be that person. That is perfectly OK to do and easy enough to do without having to redo the entire trust. You simply get an amendment to your trust.

You should get a lawyer to create your amendment to change on that particular provision of your revocable living trust.

Now, there is one other thing.

It is not a life event, but it is a legal event that does require changes to the trust.

That is if the law changes.

Several years ago in Arizona, we had some changes that the legislature made to our trust code and we sent a letter out to our clients saying these are changes that we recommend you make.

And several years before that, there was the HIPAA amendments where the law required written authorization for doctors, hospitals and medical providers to talk to you about their medical condition and medical records. That is still in effect.

If your will or trust or your medical power of attorney doesn't contain specific language related to that HIPAA requirement then it is not going to be sufficient and doctors are not going to talk to your daughter, for instance, or whoever it is you have appointed to be in charge of your medical decisions. So that is something to be aware of.

So now you have it. Those are the big factors in determining whether or not you need to change your estate plan.

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