Tim Bell ranks attorneys fifth in his real estate investing power team, below positions where they're legally required. Hire one specialized in real estate investment, check two or three client references, and consider prepaid legal memberships around $35 a month instead of traditional retainers.
Okay, so the next item on our list for our power team is our attorney. Now again, if you live in a place that requires an attorney be involved in every transaction, be present at the closing or settlement of a property, then that attorney goes up to item number two to the title company because they're a title attorney. I'm talking about places where attorneys are not required in every transaction, which is most of the United States. So as a consequence, they are number five in our position on our power team at this point now, which means they're not quite as important as the other four members. Okay. If you have an attorney on your team, that's fine and it's good. It's a great thing. I do recommend that you have an attorney that's available to you. I wouldn't necessarily put one on retainer. In fact, most modern up and coming attorneys don't work on retainer anyway. Nowadays, it's been my experience they'll talk with you, they may charge you and different things like that, but they just want to make sure that they're available to you. And I think that's a good perspective. I talked to an attorney last week and he said, you know, I don't do that retainer thing. He's a young upcoming guy, his name is Paul and he's a really brilliant attorney. Brilliant guy. But he says, I don't do that retainer thing. It's just old fashioned. He says, I just don't do that. So anyway, whatever you want to do with your attorney is fine. 1. So let's talk about the source of attorneys and what to say to them once you find them. Source of an attorney, Basically, you want. It's really, really important that you have an attorney that is very familiar with and accustomed to working in real estate. In specific, okay? Attorneys are like every other profession now. They're very specialized. And so you need to make sure that you have someone who has experience and has some level of specialization in terms of real estate investment. That's really, really important. Okay. I've talked to attorneys that were not specialists in real, in real estate. And when it came to real estate contracts and real estate disputes and all that type of thing, they were dumb as a box of rocks. Okay? They just didn't know that's not their specialty. They were other people. They were patent attorneys or trial attorneys or prosecution attorneys or criminal attorneys or, or other types of attorneys. You need an attorney that's familiar with real estate. It's a very specific, very narrow field of law that you need that level of Expertise for. So make sure that you ask them about their experience and their specialization in real estate law. Now it's okay if your attorney does has two or three focuses in their practice. They may have one focus of real estate law, real estate contracts, that may have another focus in some other area of litigation or taxes or various other different things like that. But make sure one of their specialties, one of their focuses is on real estate investment. That's really, really important for you. Okay. Now as far as the things that you want to say to them, again, the policy of asking to talk with two or three of their current clients regarding their efficacy regarding their, their expertise, that's also a good idea with the attorney, just like it was a good idea with the CPA and like it was a good idea with the contractors. No attorney who is legitimate and really worthwhile and customer service oriented will have any heartburn with you contacting a couple of their current clients and asking them some basic simple questions about how they are to work with. Okay? So again, that whole concept of that whole idea is important and can apply to many of your different team members, including your attorney. Now I want to just say one other thing about attorneys. I personally like prepaid legal. Okay. Prepaid legal is where you pay a fee every month to be a member of this prepaid legal organization. And then when you need legal advice and legal help, they will put you together with a specialist in whatever field you need help with. In our case it would be real estate investment. Okay, I do like prepaid legal. The reason I like and prepaid legal is the generic name. It means that you prepay each month to have access to attorneys in many cases. They will do many things for free and then they have small charges for other things they do for you. So again, I think that's a good investment of your money. Also you're. And I'm not a cpa, I don't even play one on tv. But most people understand that that could be part of your tax write offs for operating your business is to pay that monthly fee. Okay. Again, check with your CPA to make sure that applies to you. But that can be a good way to have an attorney. It's essentially like having them on a retainer, but, but it's not the expense and the trouble of having them on retainer. So I do like that prepaid legal. There are many, many providers of prepaid legal. All you got to do is do a Google search and you'll find lots having that membership. I think mine's 35 bucks a month have that membership can be a good thing for you so that you have available that type of advice whenever you need it.
