Re: Professional responsibility for attorney

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My guess is that there is a duty to disclose what you know.
It may not really be a problem, if the right to title is
easily obtained... Of course, if your mother is unable to
deliver title at completion of the contract she has
problems. Didn't the buyer do their own title search?

What a mess?

On 10/06/03, Mary M. Sorini wrote:
> I would greatly appreciate a sound legal ethics opinion on
> the following situation: I am an attorney who represented
> a Seller in a real estate transaction. The real property
> was sold under a Contract For Deed and an escrow company
> handled the escrow set up and is receiving the Buyer's
> payments. The Seller refused to purchase either a Title
> Insurance Report or Policy on the property. Before the
> escrow was scheduled to be set up, I discovered that the
> Seller did not (and still doesn't) own the property. I
> advised the Seller (several times) of this fact and told
> her she needed to file a civil action to get the property
> vested in her name. She chose (and still chooses) to
> disregard my legal advice on this matter. My legal ethics
> question is as follows: since the Seller has dis-regarded
> my advice, do I then have a professional responsibility to
> advise the Buyer that the Seller doesn't own the
property?
> To make matters even worse for me, the Seller is my
> Mother!

Re: Professional responsibility for attorney, 10/06/03, by rrr.

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