Why Seller Representation at Closing Matters More Than You Think — A Wilmington, NC Real Estate Insider's Take

Hi, my name is Buddy Blake, and I'm a real estate agent here in Wilmington, North Carolina. And I just wanted to have a conversation about today's world of closings for sellers. I work primarily with home sellers. I'm very good, I think, after all these years at negotiating, having real hard conversations up front, setting realistic expectations, not just telling sellers what they want to hear and, you know, also just sharing the news that, you know, all the marketing in the world is wonderful, but that is not typically what sells your house. It's going to be your pricing strategy. And then once we get it under contract, it's going to be all the steps that it takes to get through there. And I think experience matters more than ever in this market, especially this market. But one of the things I wanted to tell you that we are transitioning to slowly, but maybe more quickly, is in North Carolina, it's an attorney closing state, which means you have, whereas a lot of states, title companies close deals, but typically attorneys in North Carolina close deals, and they work for the buyer. And then there's the other side where the seller, it's called seller document preparation. Well, the same closing attorney can do the seller docs, and there's nothing wrong with that, because there's typically a little bit of discount for that. And the fees can be anywhere between $250 and $400 and some dollars, whatever, depending on the complexity. Now, if you have to have a mobile notary, like if you live out of town, it can be more than that. But one thing that we're starting to struggle with is because attorneys get busy, economics play into it. They don't necessarily have, you know, enough staff to take care of everything, whereas it used to be it was pretty commonplace for a seller to have a scheduled time to come in, sign the documents, the attorney would come in, go over the documents, answer questions, and things like that. That's just not the way it's done in most cases, unfortunately. Now, literally, we had an instance where it could be done in a reception area right in front of other people, which was very not good. And it's just not the way to do it. They just tell you to come by any time. But that's a big deal. If you're selling your property, that step, that is one of the final steps to selling. That's not the settlement statement where all the numbers are, but signing the deed has to be done a few days before closing in North Carolina so that the closing attorney can then make sure the title insurance is okay with the deed, the way it's transferring the deed, and it has to be a wet signature, which means notarized, real signature, not electronic. And then it has to be recorded at the county registered deeds office. And that is a tremendously important instrument, and it has to be done a few days before closing so that everybody can approve it. If there's a lender involved, if there's a title company involved, which there's always gonna be a title company involved, and the closing attorney has to approve it. So with that said, we are moving back to, and we're finding some attorneys that are prepared to do this, where it's actually seller representation. It costs the seller a little bit more money, and they don't have to do it. They can still go that route. But there's so many questions that need to be answered. And as a real estate agent, I can't answer definitively tax information, step-up basis. I can give them words to ask, and questions to ask, and point them in directions where they do need an attorney to talk through things. And to give you an example, we just closed one today, and it was a family situation. It was in a state, which there's a lot of those. And there's all kinds of step-up basis involved. And it was actually a few different transactions all put together, and it kind of dominoed. And I sent them to an attorney that I've known for going on 30 years. He's a friend of mine. He is working, but he doesn't do closings anymore, but he represents sellers and he does a lot of commercial deals, rights leases, subdivision stuff, very complicated stuff. In my opinion, he's one of the probably most brightest minds still around in the business, but he works till 12 every day and he does his own work. There's no paralegals, no assistants involved now because his stage of his business, he's been able to focus on what he likes to do and he builds by the hour. So to give you an example, in this situation, come to find out, and of course we don't know it, there's situations where estates aren't closed properly by another attorney, deeds aren't cut, step-up basis aren't done, and all of these things can have tax consequences, not just for the sellers now, but for generationally. It can create situations that could be remedied if they had a consultation. So I just had one today and it went really well and it got a little bit complicated, to be honest, on our side because of all the moving parts. I'll not go into the details because it's kind of private, but long story short is, my attorney friend, his name is Alan, he's also been a partner with me on different ventures over the years and we still own a building together. But in the end, he was able to sit, first off, he answers the phone call, he talks to him, you have direct access to the attorney, conversations about things to make sure everything's perfect, then he sits down with you and he goes over all these questions, explains how you might want to get an appraisal to make sure that if there's ever an audit or anything like that, so you've got the fair market value as a... at the time of the deceased passing and then you getting the property. Now, you may never need that, but you could need that. And in the case of this, this was a large transaction and it also led to an even larger transaction. And it could have been hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes, but he was able to advise them of these things. There's no way that the buyer's attorney who's doing the deed prep for a couple hundred dollars, two or $300 is gonna be able to do that. First off, you're likely not gonna get a slotted time to come in and you're probably may or may not be able to get the attorney on the phone. And I just had a recent situation. I was trying to close a deal and I couldn't get attorneys on the phone. And I'm involved in the transaction as a real estate agent. And that's no slant on attorneys. A lot of them are understaffed because things have started picking back up. And when things slow down, we all have to make decisions and cut back. Well, now you gotta get the staff back. You gotta get them trained. Well, that takes time. And then it's hard to say no to opportunities. And then when you got a bunch of realtors like me calling you left and right, hey, can you work this in? Can you work this in all at the last minute? It does create trouble for attorneys. And there are some wonderful attorneys in this area. I'm happy to share numerous ones. And I've got my favorite ones that I've used and I do my business with, but I've also got my ones that I prefer not to deal with too. Nothing against them personally, it's just, it doesn't happen well. But I just wanna tell you that if you're a seller and you're selling a piece of property, now if it's a simple transaction, no big deal, you live there, all these things, there's nothing wrong with letting the buyer's agent, I mean, the buyer's attorney doing the seller documentation. Nothing wrong at all about it. But if there's any. complication, if there's an estate, if there's inheritance, if there's tax implications, if there's flaws in the title, if there's liens, if there's judgments, it really behooves you to get seller representation with an attorney. It will cost you not thousands of dollars more. I'm talking about going from $400 to maybe $600 or $700 and that way you actually get some time to ask questions, make sure you're doing it right. And so many times it blends in the questions around other things that you need planning for. Hey, I was thinking about I need some help for this, you know, maybe you need a life estate, maybe you need a trust, you want questions about it. They can also answer those questions. But if you just do it the way it's going now, which everybody's just thinking about cheap, cheap, cheap, you never really get to get that professional advice. And we're going to start moving back to that and slow that process down just a little bit. We're going to offer it. Obviously our seller clients have the decision to do whatever they want to do, but I am finding it more and more valuable to put it in the hands of an attorney that will make the time to schedule the time, and they're charging for the time, to sit down, have a conference, and talk through things. Not just in the lobby, have someone sign, sign, sign, notarize here. So again, that is not a slant on that process. That is the way we've done it for years. It is the way most of the transactions are done, at least in our area in North Carolina, a tremendous amount of them. But I know that we are working into doing that and having those conversations with sellers on the front end, because some of these things, once you close it and you're done, you can't go back and fix it. So you need to have to... you need somebody that's an attorney that really understands all this stuff and the unintended consequences to get this done. So, if you're selling a house and you're not with me, that's fine. I'm happy to share who I would recommend. And there's a couple, but there's one in particular. But otherwise, I'm glad to have a conversation about this. And again, I really want to say, there's some great attorneys that we work with in this town and I've worked with for decades. And they're fantastic. But they can't do everything because I'm sitting here saying this, but then I'll pick up the phone and I'll call an attorney and say, hey, can you jam this deal in? All of a sudden, we got this cash offer and it needs to close in 10 days. Can you do the title search? Can you get everything done? And so, they're doing those things too. So, we're talking out of both sides of our mouth a little bit as realtors because it's easy to complain about getting it done, getting access and things like that. But the other side of it is, we're jamming stuff on them at the last minute. Anyway, seller representation, it's not normally done. It is always done on commercial deals, interestingly enough, or development deals. And I think that it's worth a few extra hundred dollars as a seller to make sure everything is done well and done properly, especially if there's estates involved, trusts involved, anything that could potentially be tax implicatable. So, anyway, thanks a lot. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you ever have questions, need referrals for attorneys or anything, let me know. I'd be glad to share what I know. Thanks.

🎙️ Buddy Blake Real Estate's Podcast — Episode Why Seller Representation at Closing Matters More Than You Think — A Wilmington, NC Real Estate Insider's Take Buddy Blake breaks down why the standard closing process in North Carolina often leaves sellers without proper legal guidance — and why investing a few hundred dollars more in dedicated seller representation could save you hundreds of thousands in taxes and unintended consequences. 📖 Read the full blog post: https://www.buddyblake.com/blog/why-seller-representation-at-closing-matters-more-than-you ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Your Host Buddy Blake, Buddy Blake Real Estate 📍 Wilmington, NC 🌐 https://buddyblake.com 💼 Sell Your Home & Keep The Most $: https://expresshomesale.com 📱 Follow & Connect: • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buddyblakenc • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buddyblakedotcom