What happens at your Lawyer’s Appointment before closing?
Whether you are buying or selling property, one of the last steps in the process is a final meeting with your lawyer or notary. What is this appointment for? We asked a local lawyer – Una Gabie of Touchstone Law. Watch this short video to see what happens at that appointment, how long it will be, and what you will need to bring with you.
Here is the Transcription:
BRENDAN – Hi there, this is Brendan Stoneman with Re/Max Kelowna and I’m talking to Una Gabie, she’s a lawyer with Touchstone Law. So, right as the closing date is about to roll around, the clients, whether you’re a buyer or seller, they’ve gotta come in and meet up with a laywer or notary to go over some paperwork and finish things off. What typically happens in that appointment?
UNA – Well there’s obviously on either side a pile of paper they need to sign. Less so on the sales side and less if it’s a purchase without a mortgage, but typically what we’ll do is we’ll get them in, we’ll go through those documents with them, give them any guidance we need to on them, confirm all the numbers with them whether it’s a purchase or a sale. And take any instructions that we need from them for example on a sale if we need to distribute sale proceeds to them what’s the best way for us to do that. So we walk through that with them. And then also give them a bit of an overview on what the rest of the process looks like. Most people are primarily concerned about when do I get my keys?
BRENDAN – Yeah. My keys or my money.
UNA – Exactly. So we talk them through the process from the time that they’ve signed with us until they’ve got their money or they have their keys so that they know what to expect for the next week or so.
BRENDAN – Cool. So then when they come in to meet you how long does that appointment normally last?
UNA – For the most part we try and book clients in for an hour just because we find that gives them a bit more flexibility if they’re running a few minutes late or if they just have a lot of questions or if something else pops up they want to talk to us about while they’re there. So we usually book an hour appointment on both sides, but usually 30 minutes is safe. A sale may take less than that, it just it depends on the transaction.
BRENDAN – Okay so when they come in to meet with you what do they need to bring?
UNA – On both sides they would need to bring proper identification because we have an obligation to verify the identity of our clients and that means for the most part we need to review two pieces of their ID. In an ideal world the names match on their ID. Frequently that doesn’t happen but we’ll generally ask for one government issued piece with a picture that’s valid – so it cannot be expired. And then a secondary piece. For a lot of people they used to rely on a driver’s license and a care card, but their care card’s now part of the driver’s license so it doesn’t count as a secondary piece.
BRENDAN – Counts as one now.
UNA – So some people will bring a passport as a secondary piece some will bring a major credit card. From out of province we’ll usually get a health care card or some people will bring a social insurance card. So it’s really just making sure they have the proper identification. On a sales side we also generally ask our clients to bring in a void check for the account they want us to deposit their sale proceeds in. We find that’s the smoothest for them. It avoids them having to come back to our office to pick up a check unless they want to. And then on the buyer’s side we’ll frequently have sent them the numbers in advance when we have them so they know exactly how much money we need them to bring in for us to be able to close on their purchase. And we typically ask them to try and bring a bank draft for that amount because it does have to go into our account and then usually turned around fairly quickly and go back out so we need to know it’s guaranteed funds.
For all your Real Estate Legal Needs you can reach out to Una at:
Una Gabie, Touchstone Law
una@touchstonelawgroup.com
(250) 448-2637 (ext. 202)
