Thanks, Youtube, for deleting my video.

Transcription:

Hey, Jim Duncan with Nest Realty and RealCentralVA.com here in Charlottesville. The question that I frequently get from my clients is: when going to closing, should we get an attorney or closing company?

My answer is this: I think that having an attorney just in case is worth that extra $100 to $150 at closing, particularly from a buyers standpoint. In Charlottesville, we are still a small town and in my opinion, if something does come up at the closing table, which does happen occasionally, it’s better for the buyer to have an attorney who can provide legal representation and advice.

Contrast that with a closing company that cannot. They do the paperwork and there are some in town that are very very good and I’ve used frequently, but I think that when a buyer is going to closing, they’re also buying the relationship that that attorney has with the other attorneys around town. Again, it’s a small town. It’s often Bob calling Jack or Larry calling Tim and they can work these things out whereas if you don’t have that foundational relationship, it can be a different situation, perhaps a more adversarial position and situation than it really has to be.

The arguments are (and I’ll link to this if you find this on RealCentralVA.com it will be linked at the bottom of the post) – one of my partners wrote a story about specifically whether the attorneys are in fact more expensive than the closing companies. Attorneys will say that they are cheaper. Closing companies will say that they are cheaper. So again, it all depends on the perspective.

So in closing, I think that when my buyer clients ask me whether they should get an attorney or a closing company, I think that saving that $100 may not be worth it. Here is the last thing I’ll say: I look for worst case scenarios in almost everything I do and try to find a happy medium and the worst case scenario is this and this happened last year: go to closing, at the closing table something goes wrong and you, the buyer, have a closing company, they can’t give legal advice. So when everything hits the fan, you come to me and hopefully (I was able to do this last year) I’m able to call in a favor from one of the local attorneys who can make things happen. I hate doing that because last minute stuff is no fun.

So that’s it. If you have any questions or would like a further explanation, please contact me at: www.realcentralva.com or (434) 242-7140