In most residential real estate transactions, a attorney charges a flat fee to review the documents, review the title work and sign the closing paperwork. If it’s a complex transaction, an hourly fee may be taken into consideration.

A fiduciary duty means that you have a legal and ethical obligation to act in someone’s best interest. For instance, a real estate attorney has to act in the best interest of their clients. Real estate agents in Florida, are actually presumed to be transaction agents, which means they do not have a fiduciary relationship with their clients. Although there are many great real estate agents out there, that’s one reason why it’s very important to hire an experienced real estate attorney because of that fiduciary relationship. An attorney must look out for your best interest and will do so throughout the transaction.

When a party makes an offer on real estate in Florida, they typically put up what’s called an earnest money deposit. This is a good faith deposit to show that they’re serious about purchasing the home, and eventually that deposit will be applied towards the purchase price or it may be held as liquidated damages if the buyer breaches the agreement.

A seller must disclose all known facts that materially affect the value of the property and that are not readily observable by the buyer. This is a requirement that stems from the case Johnson v. Davis which is the seminal case in this area of the law. A seller must disclose any defects they know that are wrong with the property and the buyer must accept the property with those defects disclosed.

In the state of Florida, if you’ve owned a home less than three years, and you receive title insurance at the time of closing, you may be eligible for a reissue credit, which is about a 40% discount on what title insurance typically costs. In addition, any time you refinance a property and you have a title insurance policy already in place, you’re eligible for the reissue credit.

A short sale essentially is when the lender agrees to take less than what is owed on the mortgage. This became a common occurrence, unfortunately, when the real estate market crashed in 2008, 2009. People often owed far more than her homes were worth. Instead of foreclosing on all these homes, sometimes a bank will agree to do a short sale, which is to take less than what is owed.

A survey gives you a visual representation of your property lines and boundaries of the property. It will show if there are any structures on the property, where those structures are located in terms of your boundary lines, so you can assess if the neighbor’s fence is on your property or if an improvement on your property is encroaching onto a neighbor’s property. You will need a survey if you’re going to obtain title insurance so they can insure the title against easements and encroachments because those items cannot be discovered without performing a survey.

A Time is of the Essence Clause in a contract means that the time periods are important in the contract. Any contract that has a Time is of the Essence Clause, a judge or court is going to enforce the time periods strictly whereas if that clause is absent, if someone misses a deadline or a closing by a few days, a court may say that that’s de minimis or not a big deal.

In Florida when you transfer real estate there’s typically a documentary stamp tax on the deed. Since we don’t have an income tax in the state of Florida the state’s got to make their money somewhere. So in Florida the transfer tax is 70 cents per hundred dollars of consideration paid.

A variance is something that you apply for when on your property you may have a building or some other situation that doesn’t comply with the zoning laws. Essentially, the variance review board will meet and decide whether or not you can continue to have the structure on your property. It may not have the proper setbacks from the front or side yards. It may have been built previous to the zoning rules. But a variance allows you to continue using that property in the manner you have been using it, even though it may go against current zoning.