Stupid real estate law
Closed on the old house today. By my calculation, me wife and I had to sign our names to roughly 157 forms. Each form needed a copy with original signature for sellers, buyers, buyer’s agent, seller’s agent, title agency and some random dude just outside the window. So, I figured we signed our names roughly 8,763 times. My math may be off.
Why can’t some real estate person get a clue and create one good form with everything on it that everyone signs once?
October 26th, 2006 at 10:57 am
No joke!
We just bought a house a few months ago. You go through a ridiculous stack of paper. And everybody knows it’s absurd.
Why is that necessary?
October 26th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Amen..we re-financied our house last year and signed at least 100 different forms. The mortgage company guy left our house with the sheaf of papers, and then came back several days later because he had forgotten to have us sign 10 MORE freakin’ forms.
I’m sure there is some language on about the 95th form that requires that you perform some ritualistic dance of shame upon missing a payment and offering your pets as sacrifices..by that time..i just didn’t care.
October 26th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Because if they made it that easy, you could do it yourself. Then you wouldn’t need to pay a real estate agent, a closer, a legal advisor, two financial officers, seven accountants and twelve administrative assistants.
Why do you think ANY laws are incomprehensible to the average person? Who are they written by? Primarily lawyers. Can you say “Job Security?” Sure you can.
Call the city attorney’s office and ask them to explain or interpret a local ordnance for you. Most likely, the answer you will get is: “you need to hire a lawyer to explain these things to you”.
Then, If you follow the lawyers advice and run afoul of the law anyway, who is responsible, the lawyer or you? The lawyer won’t be the one sitting in jail or paying fines, I can tell you that.
Now THAT’S the definition of “Catch-22”. We, as citizens, are responsible for knowing the laws and what they mean, but the very people who write the laws can’t explain them to you. And that’s not even CONSIDERING the myriad “regulations” established by the various agencies, commissions, departments and divisions of government.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:39 am
We were closing on a house in FL and were sent over to the title company to sign the forms. There was only one person there working in the title office.
We sat down with the stack of forms and started reading. She said “you aren’t going to read all those, are you?” like she needed to be somewhere else or something.
We advised her that we read everything we sign. She was quite pissed. Of course if we ever came back to any party with a dispute, she would be the first to point to the “gotcha” on page 107 section b part 32 and say “didn’t you read this before you signed it?”
October 27th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Good advice to read it all. But I’ve closed so many houses that I know what that stuff says. But usually the buyers don’t.