Attorney Toomey is a Massachusetts real estate lawyer who handles both routine and complex real estate transactions and disputes. Our clients include home buyers and home sellers, investors, institutional lenders, private party lenders, builders, developers, and landlords. We handle every facet of Massachusetts real estate law including purchase and sales contracts, purchases, sales, financing, leasing and evictions, construction, Section 1031 tax-free exchanges, real estate titles, foreclosure of mortgages, and litigation involving Massachusetts real estate.
We assist clients in the negotiation and closing of Massachusetts real estate acquisitions and sales, including the preparation of purchase & sale agreements, conveyancing documents, financing documents, tax-deferred exchange agreements, and other related documents. We can represent a buyer, a seller, or a lender in these transactions, although never a buyer and seller in the same transaction. The same Massachusetts real estate attorney may represent a buyer and the lender in the same transaction.
The first step in a purchase and sales transaction is usually an offer made by the buyer to the seller to purchase a property. Although binding, an accepted offer does not contain great detail. Consequently, a purchase and sales contract is subsequently executed. The buyer and seller are concerned about the language of the contract. Both want favorable terms in the event things don’t go as planned. The lender is not involved in the negotiation of this contract. It is important the buyer have his real estate lawyer review the contract. The agreements to sell between a real estate buyer and seller are governed by Massachusetts contract law. The statute of frauds requires that real property contracts be in writing. The agreement will not be verbal.
The next consideration for a buyer and lender is the quality of the seller’s MA real estate title. Title to real estate must be marketable, which means that it must be free and clear of all encumbrances, liens, legal questions, litigation risks, or other title defects. To ensure the property purchased has marketable title, the buyer or more accurately, the buyer’s lender, employs an attorney to perform a title search. If you are the buyer in a transaction, tell your lender you want your attorney to do the closing work. It is often possible, and with the Law Offices of Kathryn Toomey serving as the MA closing attorney, it saves you money. In a title search, the public records in the county in which a property is located are examined to determine a chain of title of ownership for a minimum of fifty years. The search will assure that title always properly passed owner to owner. The search will also reveal if there are any encumbrances on the property, such as mortgages, unpaid real estate taxes, liens for municipal improvements, unpaid federal taxes, government claims, judgments, and easements. We will arrange an Owner’s Title Policy to insure the buyer against losses caused by title defects.
To pass title to MA real estate, the seller’s attorney must prepare a deed with a correct description of the land for the seller to sign and deliver to the buyer at closing. The seller’s attorney will also assist in obtaining information necessary to pay off existing mortgage loans and clear the title and will assure the calculation of monies is accurate for the seller. The attorney hired by the buyer’s lender will conduct the real estate closing by having prepared the loan documents. That attorney will record the deed to establish ownership of the MA real property and to provide notice of its transfer to subsequent purchasers, and the mortgage to establish the lender’s lien on the property to secure the loan.