In a real estate purchase, your lawyer performs many valuable services. The first way your lawyer can help is to review the agreement of purchase and sale with you, and to estimate for you all of the costs of the purchase. These costs include legal fees, title search fees, Land Transfer Tax, Title Insurance, and registration costs. Many of these costs are not obvious, and yet they can add up to a substantial amount.
Once you have an accepted Agreement of Purchase and Sale, your lawyer’s services really begin. The primary concern of your lawyer is to make sure that you get what you have bargained for. It is the lawyer’s job to research the property and to make certain that when you later sell the home, you can do so without problems.
In addition, your lawyer will prepare documents, such as your Mortgage and check the other lawyer’s documents, such as the Deed, to ensure that all is correct and ready for closing.
Before closing, your lawyer will meet with you to go over in detail the financial arrangements, and to tell you precisely how much money will be required.
On the day of closing, your lawyer will update the title search to ensure that no changes that affect your ownership have occurred since the first search. An execution search will then be performed against the Purchasers (if a Mortgage is being placed on the title), and against the Vendors. This is to ensure that there are no executions (judgments) filed as this would be a lien on the property.
If all is well, the lawyer will attend at the Vendor’s lawyer’s office with your required closing funds and the pertinent documents. Once the Deed is registered, an execution certificate will be printed against all Vendors .
After the deal closes, your lawyer will prepare and send to you a full report, setting out all the financial and legal details and enclosing a copy of the Deed and Mortgage, if applicable, for your records.