Many deals take longer and cost more than expected because one critical detail gets ignored—the way agreements are drafted. Legal fees rise quickly and delays pile up when drafting is not done with strategy and clarity.
How are Your Agreements Being Drafted?
If you’re looking to reduce legal costs and speed up your transactions, you need to start here. The truth is: the drafting process can either be a deal accelerator or a deal killer.
What is a Real Estate Purchase and Sale Agreement?
Purchase and sale agreement is a legally binding contract that outlines the agreed-upon purchase price, due diligence process, closing date, and other terms and conditions of purchase and sale of a property (commercial or residential property). This document is the foundation of any real estate transaction. It lays out legal descriptions, responsibilities, financial terms, risk allocation, and timelines. But beyond the technical details, it serves as a legally binding agreement that manages all parties' expectations and relationships in a real estate transaction.
A well-prepare agreement has to include important financial components such as:
- The earnest money deposit and down payment amounts, often facilitated by the escrow agent
- Contingencies that protect the buyer, often facilitated by the title company
These terms will define the guardrails for deal security and flexibility.
Buyers and sellers benefit from being clear on what they’re signing. Surprises later on usually mean time-consuming fixes, extra-legal work, or—worst case—the collapse of the deal. A well-prepared purchase agreement eliminates surprises and confusion right from the start, paving the way for the seller's acceptance of the terms . Both the buyers and sellers must understand the terms of the agreement to ensure a smooth transaction.
Drafting any agreement is a science and an art. A well-drafted real estate purchase agreement can dictate the destiny of a transaction. It can help avoid legal or financial hurdles on the back end. When real estate contracts are drafted in a way that the parties are unclear about their agreement—especially when key terms like the closing conditions and timing, legal fees go up, delays mount, and negotiations get messy. A sharp purchase agreement anticipates these potential hurdles and handles them in advance. That doesn’t just make closings smoother—it also boosts confidence for everyone involved. The deal doesn’t just look good on paper, but most importantly, there are no surprises, and the deal is manageable mostly by business teams instead of needing to involve lawyers in every meeting and step.
The Hidden Cost of Bad Drafting
Most people assume that as long as a lawyer is competent, the way they draft won’t impact the deal itself. That assumption can be costly.
If you believe every lawyer naturally drafts with efficiency, alignment, and deal success in mind—you’re in for a rude awakening.
The reality is, most lawyers are not trained to think about how their drafting decisions impact:
- Negotiation timelines
- Deal friction
- Relationship dynamics
- Legal spend
- And ultimately, your bottom line
Instead, many focus solely on risk avoidance, without considering the practical business consequences of over-lawyering.
That hyper-defensive mindset can lead to:
- Overly complex documents
- Provisions outside industry norms
- Prolonged back-and-forth with the other side
- Damaged relationships
- And worst of all, stalled or failed deals
Smart Drafting = Faster, Cheaper Deals
Smart legal drafting isn’t about cutting corners. It’s about designing real estate purchase and sale agreements that:
- Reflect your true business needs
- Stay within accepted industry standards
- Reduce negotiation points
- Align with your risk tolerance
- Keep the deal moving forward
- Ensure the terms are comprehensible to all parties.
When lawyers understand this balance—and draft accordingly—everyone benefits. The deal gets done faster. Legal costs are lower. And relationships are preserved.
Legal Cost ≠ Legal Quality
The highest legal invoice doesn’t always buy the best results.
Real estate legal work is often measured by effort rather than outcome. The longer a negotiation runs, the more it costs—and yet no one tracks whether the drafting helped or hindered that process.
If your legal expenses aren’t streamlining deal negotiations or speeding up execution, it’s time to rethink the value you’re getting from your legal services.
Take Control of the Legal Process
If you want more efficient outcomes, you need to take an active role in shaping how your purchase and sale agreements are drafted. Drafting is both science and art. Your lawyers should never draft agreements in a vacuum. Below are the factors that your lawyers need to consider in drafting your agreements in a transaction:
- Your leverage in the relationship with the other party.
- Understanding the nature of the other party—such as their track record, reputation, and sophistication—can significantly influence how cautiously or flexibly your agreements should be drafted.
- Your risk tolerance.
- Your business objectives – short term and long term.
- Industry Standards – Every industry has its own norms, risk thresholds, and deal expectations
Unless you have worked with your lawyers for a long time and they deeply understand your business, they should be asking you detailed questions about the factors above.
If you are engaging a licensed real estate agent to represent you in a real estate deal, close alignment between your agent and your legal team is the key to an efficient legal process. Your real estate agent has significant influence in business deal teams - such as the purchase price, inspection period and process, closing conditions, and other timelines. Your real estate agent needs to be on the same page as your lawyers from the beginning of the real estate deal. Coordination between them means fewer surprises and smoother drafting and negotiation.
Yes, it takes time to go over the details upfront—but when an agreement is drafted thoughtfully and artfully without over-lawyering, it can save a tremendous amount of back-and-forth during negotiations.
What Breaks Deals Before They Close
Legal teams often make the following errors, even in high-stakes real estate deals:
- Reusing outdated templates designed for entirely different markets
- Writing for theoretical risks instead of known issues
- Ignoring context and leverage
- Ignore the parties' objectives and relationships
- Introducing off-market terms that draw unnecessary resistance
These are avoidable. But only if business and legal strategy are aligned early.
How SeedJura Helps You Draft Smarter
We at SeedJura don't believe in reinventing the wheel—or burdening clients with bloated, over-engineered agreements.
Instead, we work with clients upfront to thoughtfully design form agreements tailored to their business goals, market position, and risk tolerance. These forms are built using SeedJura’s proprietary technology platform, drawing from our curated library of pre-set, industry-standard provisions.
For each transaction, SeedJura’s platform generates a customized agreement based on the pre-designed form—requiring only minor deal-specific tweaks by lawyers. Because the forms were carefully crafted with key strategic factors in mind, every deal starts on a strong, aligned foundation that saves time, reduces legal closing costs, and keeps negotiations moving forward.
The result?
✅ Faster
✅ Lower legal fees
✅ Less unnecessary friction with the other side
✅ More consistent and predictable outcomes
✅ Communicates professionalism and strategic competence
If you want smarter real estate deals, start with smarter drafting.
Because legal strategy should move your business forward—not hold it back.
Before You Draft: Internal Review Checklist
- Has your leverage been clearly defined and communicated to your lawyers?
- Are risk boundaries documented and agreed upon internally? If so, have you communicated the risk tolerance with your lawyers?
- Are your goals for this deal short-term, long-term, or strategic? Have you communicated with your lawyers about your goals in this real estate transaction?
- Are you intending to stay within the norms of the market terms?
- What is your biggest concern about this real estate deal? Have you communicated this concern to your lawyers?
- Why do you want to do this real estate deal? Have you made this clear to your lawyers?
- Who is responsible to communicate with and manage your lawyers?
This checklist saves time later because most friction between you and your lawyers shows up when you have not communicated with your lawyers about these important concepts upfront.
Real estate companies that want to reduce their legal costs, speed up their deals, without sacrificing legal-grade quality, can schedule a preview of SeedJura’s platform. No sales pitch—just a walkthrough of how SeedJura's legal process works, including how we design legal forms that close deals.
Drafting Strategy as a Competitive Advantage
As most real estate professionals know, time kills deals. You may not realize that your lawyer's drafting can determine whether you will have a deal or not. In competitive markets, drafting agility becomes a strategic edge.
Real estate professionals who can move quickly—and with fewer complications—frequently gain access to better deals. Both the buyers and sellers, as well as brokers and investors, value certainty and efficiency. A slow or overly aggressive legal process can derail deals and harm your professional credibility.
Well-crafted real estate purchase and sale agreements not only reduce legal costs but may also create more opportunities for real estate professionals.
Final Thoughts
At the core of every successful real estate transaction is a strategically drafted real estate purchase and sale agreement—one that protects your interests without stalling the deal. Many people mistakenly believe that bad drafting only occurs when key terms or conditions are missing. In reality, even agreements that include all the necessary provisions can still be "bad drafting." It all depends on how your lawyers draft the agreement - including what mindset your lawyers have and whether your lawyers understand you and your deal.
Poorly structured contracts and unclear legal strategies often result in increased legal fees and sometimes dead deals. With a smarter, more efficient drafting approach, you gain more than just legal savings—you gain clarity, speed, and leverage at the negotiation table.
Your lawyers should draft with clear consideration of your business goals, risk tolerance, deal dynamics, and the relationships of the parties involved in mind, not in a vacuum. Whether you're navigating complex real estate partnerships, lease agreements, or property acquisitions or sales, aligning legal documents with real-world goals ensures smoother negotiations, reduced risk, and faster closings. The art is how to accomplish all these within your legal budget and timeline.
The key is a well-designed, thoughtful, and efficient legal process.
SeedJura has designed a legal platform that balances speed, affordability, and legal-grade quality in legal. It gives you control of the legal process. Our tech-based legal platform creates smarter agreements that move deals forward, not hold them back.
