Q: My mother recently passed away. No will and assets (basically her home) over $66,000. My sister and I are the only heirs

A: It is possible that the title company may have a genuine preference for including the assistance of an attorney (makes life slightly easier for them). They may also be trying to protect you from making mistakes in the deed. That said, Colorado generally does not require that a deed be prepared by an attorney.

A few thoughts:

1. Since you are talking in terms of selling the house -- If there is already a signed contract to sell the house, I would encourage you to re-read the provisions of the contract to confirm whether the parties (you or the buyer) agreed as to who is responsible for preparing the deed. I've seen realtors specifically address this in the Additional Provisions section near the end of the standard form contract by requiring the Seller to pay an attorney to prepare the deed. This could be why the title company is telling you to have an attorney prepare it.

2. Assuming you are not required to use an attorney per a contract provision, the title company may be willing to provide you with (or direct you to) a "form" of deed for you to complete yourself if you push them on it. They will likely not want to prepare it for you for risk of the unauthorized practice of law. But, if they provide you a form for you to complete yourself, they may be willing to review it for technical sufficiency and to proofread it for drafting errors.

3. With the conveyance of real estate generally, and the drafting of deeds specifically, a major area of value added by a competent attorney can be their attention to detail. If you choose to prepare the deed yourself, take your time to carefully review the legal description in the "vesting deed" (the deed by which your mom became the owner) and use an identical legal description in the deed you are preparing. Also take care to not provide any higher level of warranty to your buyer than your mom received when she obtained the property.

4. If you do decide to have an attorney help you, most title companies would likely have a local attorney who they consistently use for preparing deeds. They should be able to give you an accurate idea of cost in that area. If it is truly only the drafting of the deed, I suspect that you may be able to find an attorney to prepare the deed for not much more than $200 (a very ballpark figure here; in some areas it may be less).

5. As for limited funds -- I can't speak for all attorneys by any means, but in this situation an attorney may be willing to be paid by the title company out of the proceeds from the sale of the house (i.e., you don't have to come up with the cash to pay the attorney, because the title company would pay your attorney's fees before they give you the "net" cash from the sale of the house).

Best of luck,

Ashley

https://powellplanning.com/real-estate