Residential Real Estate Drafting
Legal Fee Billing Hourly  The traditional manner in which law firms billed clients is based upon an hourly rate.  If the hourly rate is $250.00 and the attorney spends 4 hours on the case, the resulting bill will be $1,000.00.  We are always willing to bill on this basis.  Our hourly billing rates vary depending on the knowledge and experience of each attorney and a lower rate for our paralegals for the work they perform.   Flat Fee  Unlike many law firms we also provide our clients with a flat fee option for many legal services.  Unlike billing at an hourly rate, the flat fee does not changed based upon the time spent on the file.  If more time is spent on the file, the client benefits, if less time is spent on the file, the law firm benefits.  The flat fee is based on a "standard" case.  If the case takes an unexpected turn, additional legal fees could be incurred. The reality is that few of our cases take such an unexpected turn.  While each case is unique, the vast majority of the cases fall within the expected "norm".  If the case does make that unexpected turn, we will notify you before we proceed so that there are no surprises at the end of the case. We also often offer options where you can hire us for the entire real estate transactions or for specific parts of the real estate transactions.	Written Retainers Don't get offended when we ask you to sign a written retainer agreement and for up front payments.  We want to make sure that all of our clients understand the costs involved in their case before the case commences and we require up front payments because, frankly, we do not want to have to collect fees from our clients.  It puts us and our clients in an extremely uncomfortable position when we are representing someone who falls behind in payments which force us to withdraw from the case.  We do not want to have to withdraw from a case but, like all businesses, we need to be paid for our services. If you need a payment plan, feel free to discuss this with us and we will try to find a way that will work for you and for us.
Possible Costs  When drafting residential real estate documents we either rely on the information you provide us or there will be an extra cost to verify the information given to us.  We always recommend that we are authorized to verify the information because if the information given to us is not correct, expensive problems may result.   The most common information that needs to be verified are the following: the legal description of the property, the specific names of the sellers when they took title, the existence of liens or encumbrances on the property. We can go to the County Recorders Office to review the property records, we can update the abstract to your property, we can order an Owner and Encumbrancer's Report or we can rely on a current title commitment.  You should discuss with your attorney which option is the best for your specific situation.