It actually varies by state. In NY, everyone including the bank, gets
their own attorney.



"'nuther Bob" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:39:36 -0400, "Art Begun"
wrote:

What kills me is that in many states the buyer pays for the
attorney
and he will not open his mouth and say anything because he wants to
get the closing over with. In other states the builder may supply
the
attorney. If you let them you are letting yourself be screwed.
Some
other states don't involve attorney's any more. In those cases you
pay less for the closing and you get what you pay for.

Here's the deal: the bank will use an attorney for the closing.
The bank does not pay for the lawyer, you do as part of the
closing costs. The bank's attorney is there only to make sure
that the bank is legally protected, not you. If the seller has
an attorney there, his job is to look out for the seller, not you
or the bank.

If you want an attorney looking out for you, hire one and have him
present. One trick you can sometimes do is to ask the bank to let
_your_ attorney do the work for them (Both attorneys will
essentially
do the same tasks anyway). Banks will often agree to this, since
they
don't really care who the attorney is as long as he is qualified.
The attorney will bill the bank, the bank will bill you, the usual
thing. The big difference is that *you* hired *your own* attorney
and he looks out for you - the billing just goes through the bank.

Bob