Episode Summary

Adam Gurney breaks down Chicago’s attorney-driven real estate closing process, where each side has legal representation and five-day contract review periods create unique complexities. He explains the current RESPA tension as brokers seek title commission revenue, common title mistakes that create legal problems, and how AI automation is streamlining transactions without replacing human service. Gurney shares what separates trusted title partners from vendors and reveals the daily coordination required between attorneys, title companies, and realtors in one of America’s most regulated markets.

About Adam Gurney

Adam Gurney is Founder at Gurney Law Group. Featured on Episode 95 of the Title Agents Podcast with Mo Choumil, CEO of Alltech National Title.

Key Takeaways

• In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shumil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation.
• With every episode, you’re handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve.
• Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Total Asians podcast.
• Today I have the honor of having Adam Gurney, founder of Gurney Law Group, based in the heart of Chicago.
• Adam brings a boots-on-the-ground perspective from one of the most unique real estate markets in the country, where attorneys play a central role in the closing process, and every deal comes with its own complexities.
• Thank you again for your time and help us share your knowledge and wisdom, but specifically about Chicago markets.
• First we start off, we’d love to hear your background, your story, where you grew up and how you got started and all that fun stuff about you.

Episode Chapters

Time	Topic
00:00	Segment 1
05:00	Segment 2
10:00	Segment 3
15:00	Segment 4
20:00	Segment 5
25:00	Segment 6
30:00	Segment 7
35:00	Segment 8

Full Transcript

In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shumil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you’re handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Total Asians podcast. Today I have the honor of having Adam Gurney, founder of Gurney Law Group, based in the heart of Chicago. Adam brings a boots-on-the-ground perspective from one of the most unique real estate markets in the country, where attorneys play a central role in the closing process, and every deal comes with its own complexities. Welcome, Adam. How are you doing? Glad to be here. Fantastic. Thank you again for your time and help us share your knowledge and wisdom, but specifically about Chicago markets. I know every market is unique. First we start off, we’d love to hear your background, your story, where you grew up and how you got started and all that fun stuff about you. Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, Shaker Heights, Ohio, specifically. I come from a family of lawyers. My dad was a transactional attorney my whole life, and my oldest brother is a PI attorney, personal injury medical malpractice. I ended up going to law school and started my career in real estate law in 2013. I landed my first job out of law school with a solo practitioner, a guy by the name of Eric Miles, who started his own firm, built it up from the ground up, and then learned everything under him. Everything from legally, but even more important, practically and service-wise and business-wise and really how to be a true professional in this industry. After learning under him for about two years, he moved to California where he became a real estate broker, and he’s thriving out there in that role. I acquired his law practice from him. I took it over from him and really all the foundation, the standards, the procedures that he had in place, I just took over and ran with from there. I was in about 2015, so ever since then I’ve been on my own over a decade now, and we’ve been growing every year since. That’s fantastic. That’s the Gurney Law Group currently, is that correct? That’s correct. So our audience is all across the U.S., as you know, different markets, even sometimes different localities have different rules and customs and guidelines. Can you explain to our audience how things work in Chicago as far as closings, title, escrow, the relationship with attorneys, title companies, realtors, all dynamic at a high level? Yeah, absolutely. So Illinois is an attorney state, so the attorneys play a crucial role in the real estate deal. In Illinois, the realtors negotiate the contracts and the parties sign the contracts without ever engaging an attorney, and once the contract is signed, then the attorneys get involved because every contract in Illinois includes what’s called an attorney review provision or attorney review contingency, which means after the contract is signed, both parties have five business days to have an attorney review that contract and either approve it, cancel it, or propose modifications to it, which is generally what happens. So you think you have a contract in place, congratulations, signed contract, your offer won out of 20 offers, but now you still have to get through this attorney period and the inspection period, which also happens subsequent to the execution of the agreement. So once that contract is in place, the attorneys take over, represent the clients all the way from contract to closing, the agents assist and, you know, from a business standpoint, work with the parties, keep the deal on track, but really it’s the attorney’s job to oversee everything from contract to closing, and fortunately for the brokers, you know, this is a great thing for them because they don’t have to, you know, dip their toes into the territory of practicing law, negotiating agreements, writing legal language, or doing anything that, you know, they could get in trouble for for crossing over that line. So the realtors really value the attorney’s role in the transaction. And when you get to the actual closing, while a lot of states just have one attorney representing the title company and facilitating the closing process, in Illinois, each side has their own representation. So each side is protected and has somebody only looking out for them, not just trying to get the deal done for the title company. That’s definitely a great benefit to have representation for each side. That definitely is a huge plus. You talked about the five-day review period or the contract. What are some of the common kind of modifications or because you say, I got a buy excited, I have an offer accepted, then you have to wait on the attorney. What kind of mistakes will make or I know every attorney is trying to protect their side. Yeah. I want to protect your clients. What are kind of the common rejections or modifications or edits? So there’s a few ones. There’s a few modifications that are pretty traditional and you’ll likely see them on every attorney’s, you know, standard letter, which is typically you’ll add a cure period in the event of default, you’ll add appraisal language because the standard contract is pretty silent on the terms of the appraisal. What happens in the event of a low appraisal? You know, they leave that to the attorneys and the parties to negotiate. In the event of default, what happens to the earnest money? What are the damages in the case? Typically attorneys will try to limit the damages in a lawsuit to just the earnest money, try to remove the threat of litigation, you know, from the equation for their clients and tax prorations. That’s probably the biggest. Every attorney review letter, we have to negotiate how the tax credit is going to work at closing because in Illinois, taxes are paid in arrears. So the seller is going to be giving the buyer a closing credit based on their potential tax liability. And it’s the attorney’s job to figure out what’s an appropriate credit. Or sometimes even, we can’t agree on that, we disagree on an escrow agreement, we’ll wait for that bill to come out and address it after closing. So those are some of the more common modifications. Then you get into modifications that are necessary to address specific transactions. For instance, a post-possession scenario where a seller’s remaining in a property after closing. There is a section of the agreement that addresses that, but usually there’s more details that go into it, or maybe realtors didn’t fill it out completely and there’s some loose ends to tie up. So that’s always going to be something that gets hammered out during the attorney review period, probably even proposing a formal separate agreement altogether that the parties go through and work out. You know, besides that, you know, certain things, if it’s an investment property, a buyer will want to make sure they have access to that property multiple times throughout the deal for measurements, quotes, bringing contractors in, things like that. Whereas the contract only provides for an initial inspection and a final walkthrough, you know, they will want to raise that so they have the ability to continue to work on the property even before they own it, basically. Not actually do work, but like I said, get those estimates, get those measurements and get things going. And besides that, just whatever individual situations call for, maybe we have to change the closing date. You know, a lot of times when there’s tenants in the property, what’s happening with those tenants, a lot of miscommunications there. Are we taking on these tenants or are we not? Well, I’m buying it with the tenants, but I’m getting a primary residence loan. I have to be sure I can move in within 60 days. Okay. We have to provide certain notices, start getting the tenants…