Real Estate Settlements

STEVE MILLSTEIN: A purchase settlement is a very overwhelming experience because you are coming into title to a home, often times for the first time, you are signing title documents, loan documents, all kinds of things, and it can become a very overwhelming situation.

ELIOT WAGONHEIM: You have to sign the New York metropolitan phone book worth of contracts. Nobody actually reads all those things.

PETER HOLLAND: Ask for a copy of everything ahead of time, so that you can take it home and read it.

STEVE MILLSTEIN: No, you are going to be presented with the majority of these documents at the time of settlement and you are not going to be given time beyond the settlement to review them.

ELIOT WAGONHEIM: Not reading the contracts or not having the time or not understanding it really is not a defense. If you signed it, you are deemed to have read it.

STEVE MILLSTEIN: Many people have legal representation. Bring a lawyer who is familiar with these documents, who has seen them many times before and knows exactly what they are saying, who can review them with you at the table and advise you right at the table how you should proceed because when you are done, it is done. There is no opportunity at the conclusion of that settlement to say, "Oops I should not have done that."