Early in my career I had three of my very first deals that were coming to close. On the very first of these deals, I was just 3 days from the closing, and incidentally also 3 days from the approval letter expiring. That deal was going to bring me a very badly needed $12,000 paycheck. That paycheck meant the difference between my family eating the following month or not. Needless to say, I didn’t just WANT that deal to close, I NEEDED that deal to close. I felt pretty good about it because I had met with my attorney three separate times to explain how I intended on closing the deal and how I utilized land trusts in the transaction. She assured me she could close the deal. Again, she ASSURED me that she could close the deal. Well, apparently there was something missing in either my explanation, or her understanding, because that fateful day (just three days prior to closing, and three days prior to the approval letter expiring), I got a call from my attorney telling me she could not close the deal. I was shocked. I was confused. I was scared and stressing out because I NEEDED that deal to close, along with the two other deals to follow! What would I do?!?!?
Here’s what I learned, and what you can learn from my mistake. Simply put, you can’t just ask your title company if they do double closings. You can’t just ask your title company if they’ll work with land trusts or options. If you’re going to do this business, and you’re going to do it right, you will have a very specialized closing that will take place, and you need to go over it step by step with your title company to make sure they will do it correctly, so when the time comes to collect a large paycheck, you can actually do it. You need to review with the attorney how many HUDs will be generated, where each of the HUDs will be sent, as well as who the buyer and seller will be for each of the transactions. Go over every single detail of the transaction, every single detail.
Even after doing this, you should still expect something to come up. Every deal seems to have something come up. A road bump of some sort. Expect it, and work your way over it. Then collect the paycheck. This is the reason why it is best to try and close your deal while you still have two or more weeks prior to the approval letter expiring.
So what happened with those three deals? I got all three of them closed, but it was very painful and very stressful. I did not like the way my attorney operated or how she handled the transactions, so I fired her after those three transactions closed. I found myself a new attorney and have been using her ever since.
Please use my lesson above to make your first few closings less stressful. The first couple closings are critical. I hope what I just shared with you will help.
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Curious as to who you recommend for a closing atty in the Raleigh area.