Buyer Representation
The largest purchase of your life deserves an attorney who reads the file like an insider.
Co-ops, condos, and one-to-four-family homes across New York City, Long Island, and Westchester. Your fee quoted in writing — typically the same business day — before you commit to anything.
Why It Matters
In New York, the contract you sign is the deal you get
New York is an attorney-state for real estate: contracts are negotiated and revised by counsel, not agents, and nearly every residential transaction has a lawyer on each side. That means the quality of your representation is set on day one — before you sign, when everything is still negotiable, not at the closing table, when almost nothing is.
Stanley Pappachan spent more than 25 years in New York real estate — including decades inside the title insurance industry, examining the liens, judgments, open permits, and defects that quietly kill deals. That experience now works for one party at the table: you.
The Process
What happens between "offer accepted" and keys
Contract Review & Negotiation
Every page read, every rider negotiated — mortgage contingency, inspection issues, closing-date protection, deposit terms. Nothing is signed until you understand it.
Title Examination
The title report read the way an examiner reads it: open mortgages, unpaid taxes and water charges, judgment liens, easements, encroachments — found early, cured while they are still inexpensive.
Building Diligence
For co-ops: proprietary lease, board package, recognition agreement, flip tax, financial statements. For condos: offering plan, bylaws, common charges. For houses: certificates of occupancy, permits, survey.
Lender Coordination
Loan documents, appraisal timing, clear-to-close requirements — coordinated so your commitment doesn't expire while someone else's paperwork sits in a queue.
The Closing
Every document explained before you sign it. Funds verified. Issues resolved in the room, not litigated after it.
After the Table
Deed and mortgage recorded, title policy issued, your complete file delivered — confirmed, not assumed.
Property Types
Co-ops, condos, and houses are three different deals
Cooperative Apartments
You're buying shares and a lease, not real property. Board packages, recognition agreements, UCC-1 filings, flip taxes, and sublet rules — the deal type where inexperienced counsel gets hurt most.
Condominiums
Real property with a homeowners' regime on top: offering plan, bylaws, common charges, assessments, and the waiver of right of first refusal.
Houses & Multi-Family
Surveys, certificates of occupancy, open permits, tenant issues on 2–4 family homes, and the municipal searches that reveal what the seller never mentioned.
Buyer Fees
Your fee, in writing, before you commit.
Fees reflect your specific purchase — a co-op studio is not a three-family house. Third-party costs (title insurance premiums, mortgage recording tax, recording fees) are separate and itemized up front, so the number you plan on is the number you pay.
NO METER.
CONTRACT REVIEW THROUGH RECORDING · QUOTED PER DEAL
Fees vary with the size, type, and complexity of the transaction and are confirmed in a written engagement before you commit. See disclaimer.
Buyer Questions
Asked at almost every closing
Should I sign the contract and then have you review it?
No — and this is the single most expensive mistake New York buyers make. Once signed, a contract binds you to its terms. Send it over before you sign; review is fast, and problems caught at this stage usually cost nothing to fix.
What's the difference between your review and the title company's search?
The title company reports what the records show. Your attorney decides what it means for you — which exceptions must be cured before closing, which can be insured over, and which should make you walk away. Having spent decades on the title side, Stanley reads those reports the way the people who wrote them do.
How long does a New York closing take?
Typically 60–90 days from contract for financed deals, faster for cash. Co-op board approval usually adds time. The biggest schedule risks — expired rate locks, open permits, payoff delays — are exactly the items handled early in the process above.
Found the one? Call before you sign the contract.
(631) 393-2650SAME-BUSINESS-DAY CALLBACKS · MELVILLE, NY