Residential Real Estate

In the Chicago area, yes, by custom and by the form: the multi-board contract assumes each side has counsel for attorney review, title companies expect a lawyer to clear the commitment, and the seller's attorney prepares the deed and the transfer declarations. Elsewhere the answer varies by state, and some states close through escrow or title companies alone. The work is the same wherever it is done. The contract is modified inside the window, title exceptions are cleared or insured over, and the closing figures are reconciled before the wire moves.

Federal law governs the loan and two disclosures. The Truth in Lending Act and RESPA, through the TRID rules, set the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure deadlines, and the lead-based paint rule applies to any home built before 1978. Illinois law governs the sale itself: the Residential Real Property Disclosure Act, the Radon Awareness Act, and the recording and transfer-tax rules at the state, county, and municipal levels. The contract governs everything the statutes leave open, which is most of the transaction.

Three things, in sequence. The contract inside the attorney-review period, including repair credits and date changes. The title commitment, with each Schedule B exception cleared, insured over, or knowingly accepted, together with the lender's conditions and the Closing Disclosure figures. The closing itself, from the deed and affidavit of title to confirmation that the deed has recorded and the policy has issued. For a seller we add the payoff letters, the transfer declarations, and the association's paid-assessment letter.

Because the owner's policy insures only what Schedule B does not except, and the exceptions are negotiable until closing. A title search surfaces open mortgages, judgments against anyone who shares the seller's name, and easements that may run under the garage. The standard exceptions for survey matters and unrecorded liens come off only with a current survey and the seller's affidavit, and a prior owner's unreleased mortgage, common after a refinance, needs a recorded release or an indemnity from the title company. Title found clean a week before closing is the goal; title found cloudy at the table is a delay.

Disclosure claims lead: a basement that floods the first spring after closing, with a seller who answered no to the water question. The Act requires proof the seller knew, and the inspection report and the seller's own repair receipts usually decide it. Earnest-money disputes follow, when a buyer walks after a contingency has lapsed and the escrowee will release the deposit only on joint direction or a court order. Survey disputes over a fence or a driveway, and claims against a title company over an exception nobody read, make up most of the rest.

By doing the reading in the week it still changes the outcome. The attorney-review letter fixes dates, credits, and repairs while the buyer can still walk; the title objection letter forces exceptions to be cleared while the seller still has to clear them; the Closing Disclosure is checked against the contract and the payoff before the three-day clock starts, because a corrected disclosure can restart it. Wire instructions are confirmed by a call to a number we already hold, never one in the email that delivered them. None of this is visible at a closing that goes well, which is the point.