Don’t Handle Your Home Short Sale Without a Real Estate Lawyer

If you are facing a home foreclosure you need to fully investigate all of your options before you simply walk away from your home or let the bank seize it. Walking away from your home mortgage sounds simply but it won’t protect your credit and it won’t save you from the bank coming after you for the home mortgage balance later on down the road.

Many home owners have attempted mortgage loan modifications, only to be frustrated by the lack of cohesiveness in the banking system and often lack luster results in the end. A more realistic option for many home owners is to either go along with the foreclosure or to accept a short sale offer. A short sale of your home is one way to avoid a home foreclosure that will do significant long time damage to your credit. Short sales however can be complex and are not something you should even attempt or contemplate without the assistance of a real estate lawyer.

Your real estate agent may be well versed in short sales and you may be completely confident in their abilities to help you through this difficult process but your real estate agent is not a real estate lawyer and if anything goes wrong with your short sale you won’t have a legal leg to stand on to hold your real estate agent legally responsible for your short sale legal problems.

You may feel while you are going through the short sale process to stave off bankruptcy that you simply cannot afford the expertise of a real estate lawyer but the truth of the matter is, if you don’t use a real estate lawyer you may end up losing money and finding more complications and loose ends than either you or your realtor can successfully handle without some type of legal help.

Don’t forget a short sale is more complicated than a traditional home sale because the mortgage lender must approve the short sale price which is generally at a huge loss for the lender but often the only option in a tanked real estate market. Some lenders will attempt to come after you for the balance of a short sale and this is just another reason among many that you should not attempt a short sale without the legal help of a real estate lawyer to protect you. Your lawyer can advise you on what steps you need to take to ensure your future financial security is not jeopardize by your short sale home today.

If your short sale falls through or you simply don’t get any offers and a foreclosure looks imminent, your real estate lawyer can also help you revisit your other options including allowing the home to go into foreclosure and working with the bank for “key money” to return the home in good repair and return the home’s keys by a determined date, which can help make it possible for you to afford to leave.