Since I have been active on the Rain, I have seen several posts by real estate professionals that boarder on the rendition of legal advice. I did not see any thing in their profiles to indicate that they were licensed lawyers. That can be a dangerous situation.
In a recent post by Maria Gilda Racelis, entitled, Agents Should Not Act and Talk Like Home Inspectors", most of the real estate sales professionals who commented on her blog agreed that they would not render advice that would otherwise be the bailiwick of a home inspector. I suggest to you today that you should not act or talk like a lawyer unless you are licensed to practice law. That can be just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than acting and talking like a home inspector. In CT, it is a felony crime to practice law 
without a license.
Some of the things that you need to avoid advising clients about are title matters, property line matters, types of deeds and the form of ownership that 2 or more people should use to acquire ownership to a property. There are many more areas and you need to think before commenting on subjects that sound like legal matters.
The thing that you may not realize is that some of these seemingly harmless and simple areas of the law that you may otherwise feel qualified to talk about may have implications far beyond the immediate sales transaction or financing transaction. For example, the form of ownership by which the buyers take title, whether as tenants in common, joint tenants with rights of survivorship, or as tenants by the entirety (reserved only for married persons), may have implications down the road on the buyers' estate plans and may well have tax ramifications if their estates are large enough.
When I was in graduate school in Chicago in the mid-1970s, there was a big flap about what sales professionals could and could not do in terms of preparing contracts and avoid infringing on the practice of law. The lawyers and real estate professionals did resolve their differences and entered into a somewhat renown Lawyer-Broker Accord. That agreement between the professions limited the sales professionals to just completing the blanks in a form board contract. I know CA has an extensive set of board forms that give sales professionals a lot of latitude in managing a transaction and addressing a number of issues. All the CA forms as I understand are prepared by the CA Bar Association. They all seem to work well together just as was the result in Chicago after the Accord was formalized.
I would finally suggest that if you have any doubt, consult a lawyer. They work on referrals too, and I am sure that most real estate attorneys would be glad to provide some free advice for a potential referral down the road. I would bet most of you have a connection with one or more attorneys. Use it and avoid the consequences of practicing law without a license.
The statements and opinions expressed herein are the personal statements and opinions of the writer and are not to be construed as legal advice or legal opinions. If you have any questions regarding the subject matter of this post, please contact a competent, local, licensed attorney.
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