Real estate · · 6 min read
A lawyer for buying a home: the questions that help you choose
How to choose a lawyer for buying a home in Israel: questions on experience, availability and what the fee covers, so the choice is a decision, not one tip.
The message goes to the family group on Sunday evening: "Does anyone know a good lawyer for buying a flat?" Within an hour, three replies and three names. One aunt "really recommends" hers, a cousin "closed a deal with him once, it was fine", and someone sends a phone number without a word. In the end you pick whoever called back first, or whoever quoted the lowest price.
Then, quietly, the thought arrives: "We have no idea what to ask. It's not our field." The biggest deal of your life, and you're choosing the person meant to protect it the way you'd choose a plumber in an emergency.
From there, two familiar paths: decide that "they're all the same", or settle for the lawyer the other side offers, because it's convenient and they already have the paperwork.
Part of you wants to protect the deal, to know someone is there for you. Another part is embarrassed to question a professional: "Who are we to quiz a lawyer? It'll sound suspicious. It'll sound like we don't trust him." Not asking protects you from feeling like a nuisance, and that's an understandable wish. It just leaves this important choice to luck.
Why choosing a property lawyer is so hard
The difficulty isn't you. With a professional service, quality is very hard to measure in advance. Economists call this a "credence good" (Darby and Karni, 1973): a service whose quality is hard to judge even after you've received it, because there's nothing to compare it with. A deal that went smoothly can't tell you what would have happened with someone else.
So people rely on recommendations, and that's perfectly reasonable. A recommendation tells you one thing, though: that someone was satisfied. It doesn't tell you what the fee covered, who in the office actually worked on the file, or whether the lawyer represented only them.
You don't need legal knowledge to choose. You need to ask two offices the same questions and compare the answers. The lawyer checks the contract. You choose the lawyer, by the answers.
Two written answers before you choose
Choose a lawyer for the deal after two written answers to the same five questions. No legal knowledge needed, no feeling of being a nuisance, and no need to drop your aunt's recommendation. It stays an excellent starting point. It just isn't the end of the choice.
A lawyer for buying a home: five questions, two offices, one written quote
Step 1: five questions
These are the questions people ask when they want to understand what they're getting. None has a single right answer. Some answers are simply clearer than others.
The five questions for every office
0 of 5 done
And experience? A good question, as long as it's asked in a way that can be answered: how many deals like yours, a new-build or a resale flat, has the office handled in the past year, and what usually takes longest in a deal like that? That answer says more than "we have extensive experience", and it also gives you a picture of the months ahead.
The first question matters especially when the other side, a developer for example, offers a lawyer of its own. That doesn't mean anything is wrong. It means it's worth knowing whom the person across the table represents, and deciding whether you also want someone acting for you.
Step 2: ask at least two offices
Send the same short email to at least two offices: the recommended one and one more. Not to find the cheapest, but so you have something to compare. One answer is information. Two answers are a choice.
Choosing by recommendation vs choosing by answers
| Aspect | One recommendation | Two written answers |
|---|---|---|
| What's included | What the friend remembers | A written list |
| Who works on the file | Unknown | A name and a role |
| Whom the lawyer represents | Assumed | Asked and answered |
| The final amount | A number said on the phone | A written quote, with VAT |
| How signing day feels | Hope | Knowing |
One recommendation
- What's included
- What the friend remembers
- Who works on the file
- Unknown
- Whom the lawyer represents
- Assumed
- The final amount
- A number said on the phone
- How signing day feels
- Hope
Step 3: the lawyer's fee, as a written quote
Ask each office for a written quote stating what's included, what isn't, and whether the amount includes VAT. A written quote isn't distrust. It's how both sides remember the same thing. If something in a quote is unclear, ask about it before you sign the fee agreement, not after.
This article names no "fair" price and recommends no office. If the amounts differ widely, compare what each one covers first, and only then the number. The choice is yours.
Step 4: the fee goes into the plan
The quoted amount, VAT included, isn't an end-of-deal surprise. It's a line in the home plan, alongside the down payment and purchase tax. Once the number sits in the plan, it stops being an awkward subject in the meeting and becomes one more line, like any other.
In AlphaHome: in the savings plan, enter the lawyer's fee as a one-off future expense with a date, next to the deal's other costs, and the required monthly deposit updates to match. Once paid, the expense goes into a category you set up for the deal, say "Home purchase", with a "Legal" subcategory.
When asking feels rude
"It feels rude to ask a lawyer questions like these." You're sitting in front of the email, and that thought stops you. One opening line, written in advance: "We're asking every office the same questions so we can compare." Offices get emails like this all the time. Today, send one. For next time, decide in advance that the choice happens only after two answers.
"They just said 'let's talk on the phone'." One office won't reply in writing, and you wonder whether to push. That's an answer too, to the question about availability. You can ask once more for a written summary. If it doesn't come, you've learned something a recommendation would never have told you.
"Now my aunt is hurt." She heard you didn't go with her lawyer. Tell her the truth: you asked him the same questions as everyone else. You may well have chosen him. And if you didn't, you chose by the answers, which is exactly what she'd want for you.
Choosing by the answers
A choice made from a single phone call leaves the same uncertainty this whole story started with: hoping it all works out, without knowing exactly what you agreed to. That isn't a lack of knowledge. It's a choice made without a way to compare.
Now there is one: five questions, two offices, a written quote, and a line in the plan. And if you're preparing for the developer's sales office before all this, there's a question list for that meeting. The legal knowledge stays with the lawyer. Choosing the lawyer stays with you, and you do it by the answers, the way you'd choose any major supplier in life. That's a good feeling to carry into the biggest deal you'll make.
This week, send the same short email with the five questions to two offices, and write the answers into a two-column table.
Do one thing this week
Open AlphaHome, record this month's income and fixed charges, and see how much is really free to spend. Everything in this article starts from that number.