Do I Need To Hire An Attorney To Do A Short Sale?

It is our belief that you will be best represented in a Short Sale by a competent experienced real estate agent who works every day in the real estate business, will market your property aggressively in order to attract buyers, and who is experienced at doing Short Sales and negotiating with lenders. In our view, an "experienced Short Sale agent" is one who has done at least 10-20 successful Short Sales in the downturn cycle.

If you have questions about the tax implications of a Short Sale, we recommend you seek the advice of a qualified CPA or tax accountant.

If you want to explore filing bankruptcy, we recommend you seek the advice of a competent bankruptcy attorney. Call our office-we can recommend several.

With this said, a word of caution. Many attorneys seem to be preying on the fear and desperation of people facing foreclosure. Their websites use scare tactics to make people think they would be crazy to do a Short Sale without first hiring an attorney, that attorneys are the only ones qualified to interpret a Short Sale approval, and that hiring an attorney is a normal and accepted part of doing a Short Sale, like hiring an attorney for divorce proceedings.

The bottom line is that this is just not the case. The overwhelming majority of Short Sales are conducted by real estate brokers who are experienced at negotiating with the lenders and charge NO UPFRONT FEES for their services.

Finally, many of these attorneys do not even negotiate the Short Sale themselves, and instead subcontract out all the Short Sale negotiations. In our opinion, these Short Sale negotiation companies (known in the industry as "short sale mills") are absolutely the wrong entities to entrust with the negotiation of your Short Sale. See the following FAQ.