Who can do the closing

Title & Closing
1

Seth, I have been going through your state-by-state guide to real estate closing agents.
The State-by-State Guide to Real Estate Closing Agents

I have two questions.

The designations you use in the various states are:
Can be closed by (here entities are listed)
Must be closed by
Are typically closed by

Can you comment on what the difference means in practice? Does this mean, for instance, that in a state where a sale “can be closed” or “is typically closed by” a title agency or attorney, the seller can also perform this task?

Second question. There is a lot of information provided online about how the seller can close on a transaction himself to save money and time. I note, though, that only a handful of states are listed as allowing any entity other than a title agency or an attorney to do the closing. A few allow the lender to do the closing, which I suppose applies in the case of seller financing. I do not find any, however, that permit the seller to do the closing unless he is also the lender.

Can you comment about this, please?

2

Disclaimer: I’m not an attorney. This isn’t legal advice.

When I made this map, I talked to a lot of different people in every state (as you can imagine) and found all of their answers fit into the three categories you mentioned. Sometimes, it was a clear ‘YES, you can close without an attorney’ and other times it was ‘NO, you cannot close without an attorney.’

However, sometimes there was more nuance to it with a ‘Yes’ and a ‘No’.

For example, Illinois is considered an “attorney state” for real estate transactions because attorneys are typically involved in real estate closings as a matter of custom and practice in Illinois. However, there is no legal requirement to use an attorney for the whole thing, just parts of it.

For example, when preparing documents (deeds, mortgages, powers of attorney, etc.), only an attorney can prepare them in Illinois because they consider this to be ‘practicing law’ in that state.

Most states don’t work this way, but Illinois does… as you can see, you don’t need an attorney to close the whole deal, but you do need them to prepare the deed… so they’re kinda required and kinda not.

See how tricky it is?

The thing to follow in that map is the colors of each state. The darker the blue color, the more attorney involvement is required. The lighter the blue, the less (if any) attorney involvement is necessary.

The bottom line is that in most states, you’re probably fine doing it yourself, but I would be more careful and research it more closely in the eastern half of the country, especially along the Atlantic coast.

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