Question about South Carolina property deeds - do you need a closing attorney to conduct a sale?

Question

South Carolina real estate question: I want to buy a piece of property from a man in my neighborhood. Would I need to go through the trouble and expense of hiring a closing attorney to conduct the sale, or can I just have him sign a quitclaim deed to me, or some other form, which I can just file at the courthouse? I want to avoid a lot of expense, and this guy is quite up in years and has a strong distrust for attorneys... go figure. Thanks for any advice/assistance you can give! Eric

Answer 1

I am a licensed agent in both NC and SC.

You cannot use a quit claim deed to transfer property in the state of SC...it must be transferred by General Warranty Deed.

You cannot conduct the closing of a real estate transaction unless you are an attorney, a title company, or broker-in-charge of real estate firm, legally, can do them...but you'll never find one that will take that kind of liability.

Understand that the bulk of closing costs are in title search, title insurance, shipping of closing packages back to the lender, etc.

If all you need is for someone to draw up a bill of sale (which is required unless you want the guy to back out the day before and legally have that right....b/c unless you are a licensed attorney, you cannot draw up a real estate contract in SC b/c that is practicing law without a license).

He shouldn't charge you more than $200 to $300.

If a seller doesn't want you to use an attorney to protect YOU, then I would question whether you should buy the property at all.

PS:  Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT buy this property without doing a title search...and that is going to be hard if you don't know what you are looking for.  Someone posted the other day on Yahoo! Answers that they bought a property for $10K cash only to find out that it had $5,000 worth of liens on it.