| The most expensive thing most people will buy in their | | | | large home loans. Some of these loans had monthly |
| lifetime is the house in which they live. In addition to | | | | payments that exceeded 50% of the buyers' monthly |
| being expensive and taking decades to pay for, the | | | | income. In short, they agreed to lend buyers money |
| purchase of a house also represents one of the more | | | | that they knew the buyers could not afford to |
| complicated legal transactions most people will ever | | | | repay.Provide buyers with mortgage documents that |
| encounter. Despite the need for contracts involving | | | | stated that the property wasn't being resold but was |
| bankers, city, state and county tax assessors and | | | | rather being refinanced by existing owners. Offer loan |
| other legal entities involved in the sale of land, most | | | | documents that contained a number of blanks which |
| people never even consider hiring an attorney to assist | | | | the sellers filled in sometime after closing. Buyers were |
| them with the purchase of a home. That's unfortunate, | | | | later shocked to discover that their monthly mortgage |
| as the relatively small amount of money saved by | | | | payments were much higher than they had been |
| hiring an attorney now could possibly save thousands | | | | promised. Showed the buyers fraudulent appraisals |
| of dollars later.How can an attorney save you money? | | | | that suggested that the property in question was |
| By double-checking all of the terms and documents of | | | | worth 2-3 times its actual value.A lawyer would have |
| the transaction to make sure everything is legal and | | | | caught any one of these problems, had even one of |
| proper. Most people who buy homes don't bother to | | | | the displaced homeowners bothered to hire one ahead |
| check zoning ordinances or whether or not the home | | | | of time. And yet hundreds of buyers appear to have |
| or fence on their property encroaches on that of a | | | | been victims of mortgage fraud because they weren't |
| neighbor. An attorney can check these things along | | | | willing to spend a few hundred dollars to have an |
| with tax issues and any one of a number of minor | | | | attorney look over the documents before they signed |
| things that most buyers never even know to think | | | | them.Buying a house is agreeing to an obligation that |
| about.Right now in Texas, a number of homeowners | | | | can tie up your finances for decades. It only seems |
| who lost their homes to foreclosure are engaged in | | | | reasonable that if you are going to spend hundreds of |
| lawsuits against the company that sold them their | | | | thousands of dollars on a place to live, you might want |
| houses. Among the allegations in the case are | | | | to consider spending hundreds of dollars to make sure |
| suggestions that the company that sold the property | | | | that the terms of your purchase are legal and |
| did such things as:Tell buyers with bad credit and even | | | | reasonable. A little money spent now could save you |
| previous bankruptcies that they qualified for unusually | | | | a lot of money later. |