Do You Need a Real Estate Attorney When Buying or Selling a Home in Pennsylvania?

For most people, their home is the most valuable thing they will ever own. For most people who borrow money, their mortgage is the largest debt they will ever take on. A transaction involving both of those things is not the time to guess, hope for the best, or lean on something you read online or asked an AI chatbot.

Pennsylvania doesn't require you to hire a lawyer to buy or sell a home. Plenty of things can technically be done without a professional. You could also have your appendix removed by someone who isn't a board-certified surgeon. That doesn't make it a good idea.

What a Seller's Attorney Does

The deed is the document that actually transfers ownership, and it needs to be drafted carefully. It should convey exactly what the seller agreed to sell: no more and no less. That sounds simple until you consider what can be tied to a piece of land in Indiana County. Oil and gas rights, coal rights, timber, rights-of-way, and easements can all be conveyed or reserved in a deed, and a single sentence can decide who owns them going forward.

Consider a seller who owns a farm along with the oil and gas rights underneath it. They plan to sell the house and land but keep the gas rights. If the deed doesn't clearly reserve those rights, they may pass to the buyer at closing, and the seller may not find out until a landman comes knocking or royalty checks start going to someone else.

A lawyer also determines what kind of warranty the seller can give. In Pennsylvania, most residential deeds are special warranty deeds, meaning the seller promises there are no title problems created during their own ownership. A seller who gives a broader warranty than they should may be taking on responsibility for problems that existed long before they bought the property.

The legal description matters too. Old deeds in rural parts of the county sometimes describe boundaries using landmarks that no longer exist, like a stone pile, a fence line, or a neighbor's name from 1920. A lawyer knows how to handle those descriptions so the property being sold is clearly identified.

Beyond the deed, a seller's attorney should review the agreement of sale and closing documents to make sure the seller isn't agreeing to terms that expose them to risk after closing.

What a Buyer's Attorney Does

Buyers benefit from having a lawyer on their side just as much. Most buyers sign an agreement of sale within days of finding a house, often on a standard form, and often without fully understanding the deadlines and contingencies in it. Missing an inspection deadline or misunderstanding a financing contingency can put a deposit at risk.

Buyers of rural property in our area should also ask questions that don't come up in a typical suburban sale:

• Do the oil, gas, and coal rights come with the property? In much of Indiana County, they were severed from the surface decades ago. Many buyers assume they're getting them and are surprised to learn they aren't.

• Is the land enrolled in Clean and Green? Pennsylvania's preferential tax program for farm and forest land can carry rollback taxes if the new owner changes how the land is used.

• Is there an existing gas lease, pipeline, or right-of-way? These can affect where you build, what you can do with the land, and whether you receive royalties.

Settlement companies and closing agents are trained to get a transaction closed. But unless they work with a licensed attorney, they can't give legal advice, and they can't draft or interpret legal documents for you. Adding or leaving out one word in an agreement of sale or a deed can change the outcome of a transaction in ways you won't discover until years later.

A Word About Wire Fraud

Every buyer and seller should know that criminals target real estate closings. A common scam involves a fake email that looks like it came from your closing agent, with new wiring instructions. Once the money is sent, it's usually gone. Always confirm wiring instructions by calling a phone number you know is correct, never one listed in the email. 

Lawyers and a Title Company Under One Roof

At Delaney & Fritz, P.C., clients get the benefit of both. Our attorneys have decades of real estate experience, and we share our office with Attorneys Land, Abstract and Settlement, LLC, also known as ATLAS Real Estate Closing Company. ATLAS is Indiana County's only gold-winning title company. It handles closings efficiently and serves as a title insurance agent, offering the lowest title insurance rates allowed by law to every customer.

We also employ our own title abstracting staff. That means we aren't waiting on someone else's schedule or relying on the quality of someone else's search. When a question comes up during a closing, the attorney who can answer it is down the hall.

If you're buying or selling property anywhere in western Pennsylvania, call us at 724-349-2255 before you sign anything.