Ninety-nine percent of homebuyers and home sellers go visit a lawyer AFTER they have already committed themselves to legal obligations by executing a Real Estate Purchase Contract. More often than not, the transaction goes off without any legal hitches, and both sides are happy.However, there are enough cases where problems arise to warrant some comment on the practice of leaving the lawyer out of the picture until the last minute.

Take a transaction where the seller has agreed to a contract with a condition that the buyer sells his home by a certain date, or the contract is invalid.This seems reasonable – a home should sell within a few months, shouldn’t it? What happens if the buyer’s house does not sell and in the meantime, the seller has gone and signed a contract to purchase a house with a condition that her house sells by a certain date?If you have followed this train of events, you will see that a broken contract somewhere down the line can have grave effects for the other parties involved along the chain.

Take another transaction where a homebuyer has signed an offer and the seller has agreed to that offer. Further, let us say there were no conditions, or that the purchaser waived all conditions. What we now have is a contract, binding upon both parties. Now, let’s say the buyer visits the home and, by chance, notices there is something wrong with the property – perhaps some leaks are noticed in the basement, or a distinct odor is now apparent. Well, the buyer should be able to get out of the contract, right?

Unfortunately, this is not the case. When you buy a home in Canada, it is “caveat emptor” which is Latin for “buyer beware”. Except in some rare instances of fraud or something called latent defects, the buyer is usually left without any good remedy against the seller of the home. You get what you get. This problem could have been avoided if the buyer had been advised by a lawyer to arrange a home inspection, or to make sure the condition for a home inspection was placed on the contract for a sufficiently long period.

Many other problems can be avoided by consulting a lawyer before putting your signature to a real estate contract. Many costly mistakes can be avoided and the transaction can often go much more smoothly with a solicitor’s assistance from the outset. Usually, you will not end up spending much more, if any more at all, by consulting a lawyer and letting them know what your plans are. The benefits usually outweigh the cost of having to fix the problem after the fact. Consider contacting our firm before your next Southern Alberta residential or commercial real estate transaction.