Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

You may have a malpractice claim against BOTH your Attorney and/or your Agent if you were not advised of these extra expenses in some manner.

You would need to have an attorney consult your closing documents and items related to your real estate purchase.

It is hard to provide an adequate answer here. I would need to go over your settlement statement, title commitment and other documents to confirm the circumstances. If there were unpaid, past due taxes and they were shown in the title insurance commitment, then your agent and attorney should have advised you and you may in fact have a claim against one or both. If there were unpaid, past due taxes and those taxes were not excepted in the title commitment, then you are protected by the title insurance company and you can make a claim on your title insurance policy. If you are speaking about recent taxes, you may simply need an explanation of your settlement statement. You may have to pay the property taxes for a period during which you did not own the property, but you should have been provided a cash credit as part of the closing calculations (usually appears on the front page of the HUD-1 Settlement Statement. In other words, you may have already been given the estimated funds with which to pay the seller's share of taxes.