CHARLOTTE — Everybody who’s anybody in the Charlotte real estate industry knows — or at least knows of — Ralph McMillan. With a career that dates to 1977, McMillan is considered by many to be the go-to real estate lawyer in town, especially if it’s a complicated closing.

Tagged with: closings real estate Real Property

Doing a closing is the practice of law - and it isn't. It depends whom you ask, where you are and which part of a "closing" you're doing. Last week the State Bar council adopted a resolution supporting H. 690, a bill pending in the General Assembly that would "clarify the law with respect to the involvement of attorneys in closings," according to Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, one of the bill's co-sponsors.

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Outsourcing is nothing new, and businesses have been outsourcing certain operations to India for years. But property and property law in North Carolina, for the most part, is local - at least for now. Still the push is on from industry and, arguably, the federal government to nationalize the attorney-controlled real estate system in the state. A company based in Bangalore, India, has been offering its title abstracting services in North Carolina for at three years, according to its managing partner, M.S. Shridhar.

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Raleigh resident Michael Pennington is mad at Trust Title. The real estate broker's client was under contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to purchase a property in Durham. The contract was signed in August, and the closing was to occur no later than Nov. 10. Pennington's client remitted an earnest-money deposit of $1,000 to HUD's contractor, Reston, Va.-based Trust Title - but the deal never closed.

Tagged with: closings HUD real estate Real Property

By PAUL THARP, Staff Writer paul.tharp@nc.lawyersweekly.com   Trust Title’s contracts with the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been terminated, according to its president, Kip Gardner. The company was HUD’s contractor for closing HUD-owned properties in North Carolina. The problems ...

Tagged with: closings HUD real estate Real Property

The Department of Housing and Urban Development says it is eager to offload an unprecedented inventory of North Carolina residential real estate, but its own rules and contractors are inhibiting closings on sales of HUD-owned properties, attorneys say. "My experience with HUD has been that they have established some rules which have made it very difficult for them to liquidate real estate in my opinion," said Monroe attorney Lewis R. Fisher. "To further complicate matters, HUD has representatives who don't understand real estate law in North Carolina," he said.

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News of guilty pleas from principals of Charlotte’s Settlement Source who admitted to embezzling $2.4 million from clients in real estate transactions between 2005 and 2007 may not have come as a surprise to attorneys familiar with the growing problem ...

Tagged with: Attorneys closings N.C. State Bar real estate Real Property Unauthorized Practice of Law

Because buyers in residential real estate transactions have a better opportunity to protect themselves from attorney embezzlement than sellers, they should bear the risk of loss, the Supreme Court has ruled in a 5-2 decision. The ruling aligns with the ...

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