Seeing You Across the Finish Line
Attorney Ed Sanders of Maddox, Thornley, and Sanders makes local real estate closings more pleasant
Words by Terrell Manasco | Image by Al Blanton
If you’ve ever purchased a home, you probably still have images of endless stacks of documents printed in a seemingly foreign language. If you only had someone to translate the “legalese” into English, so you knew what you were signing…
Enter Ed Sanders.
A seasoned attorney, Ed has been handling real estate closings since he started practicing law in 1993. “I had done a little summer work with Brent Thornley and his partners at the time and we did some closings,” Ed explains. “Over time, loans started shifting to national lenders where you’re borrowing money for 25-30 years. Those tended to need attorneys to close them.”
That industry grew during the decade of the 1990s such that it is now the standard. On most transactions buyers and sellers want an attorney— not just for document review, but also to disburse the money.
As one-third of the law firm Maddox, Thornley, and Sanders, Ed and his partners are often called upon to assist people with the legalities of buying a home. All share in the duties, using an “assembly-line” process. “Brett and Scott handle the files when they first hit our doorstep,” Ed explains. “We're checking to make sure the buyer can get a clean title from the seller, that the bank can get a good mortgage on the property that they’re securing. They do most of that work on the front end and it transitions to my end of the pipeline. I’ll be closing the bulk of the deals in terms of sitting down at the table and explaining to people what they are doing.”
In his 27 years of practicing law, Ed has witnessed many changes in the home-buying process. While the amount of paperwork may have doubled, some things have improved. “It's certainly more regulated now—that's not necessarily a bad thing,” Ed says. “A lot of my job is being a translator, explaining to people why you're doing what your lender is needing you to do or explaining to realtors why this particular transaction needs to be changed or adjusted. A lot of it is translating into English so that people can understand it.”
Anyone with a mortgage knows buying a home can be a nerve-racking ordeal. Ed says he finds satisfaction by reducing that stress and helping people become new homeowners. “If I can lessen that anxiety and get them to the finish line, if they get there and they think, ‘Hey, that wasn't that bad, I understood what I was doing, and I feel confident about what I just signed,’ that’s pretty satisfying,” he says.
Another satisfying aspect of his job, Ed says, is working with smart people who have a lot of integrity about how they do their job. “We as a community are very blessed with folks on the lending side and the realty side who know what they're doing and don't mind working hard to try to get things done well.” 78