Posted by John Merchant on December 18, 2006 at 13:13:45:
Maybe a good experienced RE agent would be more help to you in your first deal or two than any lawyer.
Suggest you call a few for whom you can get some good recommendations and see if you could make a flat fee deal with them to write up a RE P&S for you and walk you through why they use what forms.
While it’s against most (all?) MLS rules for such an agent to GIVE you blank MLS forms, from your copies of what your first deal or two produce, you could devise your own forms…direct reproduction would be copyright infringement, but using those, you could write up your own forms for escrow to use in closing your deals.
And despite what some agents may tell you, there are those REAs who’d, for a few hundred bucks, walk you through the whole process.
For benefit of all, no P&S contract has to be formatted or in certain order and it might be hand written on a shingle and still be binding if it’s signed and every element is indeed agreed to by all parties thereto.
A little more explanation: While nobody but a lic. lawyer in your state has a right to draft legal docs for others, anybody can draft and write his own for his own use in his own deals.
Even an escrow officer, unless he/she’s lic. to practice law, can only complete certain pre-drafted and printed forms authorized by that state Bar Association…then the LPO (Limited Practice Officer) in the escrow co. can grab the right form and complete it from your P&S form instructions.