Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

I can't think of any reason you'd need a real estate agent, except to prepare a purchase/sale agreement for you. Since there is significant potential liability that attaches once an agent is retained, however, you may find it hard to get a licensed agent to handle the paperwork without a "listing" agreement that would cost you far more than it would be worth. You will need an escrow agent, since the new loan will require an escrow anyway, but that's just a cost of the refinance no matter what. The key thing is that you can expect the new lender to want some kind of purchase/sale agreement showing that the new borrowers will be the new owners. Also, technically the selling "partner" still has the same disclosure obligations as an arms-length seller. As I said, you can try to find a real estate agent who will do that paperwork for your cheap, but I have my doubts that you can easily find one to do it because they incur their own investigation and disclosure obligations if they do that. Your other alternative is to have an attorney do it which, strange as it may sound, I think could be cheaper. I could meet with you, provide you with the disclosure forms the seller would need to fill out, and gather the details for the contract for a couple of hundred dollars at my rates, and then have a paralegal prepare the contract at a much lower rate. Unless there are complications that are not apparent from your description of the situation, I would expect the total cost definitely would be under $1,000, and possibly could come in under $500. I have conference facilities in downtown San Francisco, and would be happy to meet with you there if you would like my assistance with the transaction.

Mr. McCormick's offer looks pretty tempting. I would like to comment that the cost of your new mortgage potentially overwhelms the costs of putting together the transaction (lawyer fees, etc.) as a slight difference in interest rate or even "points" charged could easily exceed the other transaction costs by a substantial margin. Especially since your position as co-borrowers is a little unusual, you need to shop for your new financing quite carefully. Maybe a mortgage broker will be helpful in this process, but if you do use one, be sure to select someone who is going to shop several lenders that will take a careful, personalized look at your situation (borrowing history, incomes, credit rating) and NOT just quote you a high rate because your situation isn't "cookie cutter" or "plain vanilla."