Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

This is very sad, but there was a huge scam going on during that time period. Scam artists (including one who is now a disbarred attorney) forged all sorts of documents that made it appear that churches had legally sold off church land (some of which had been donated by congregants who left the land to their churches in their wills....), and all of those sales were void.

You may have been a victim of one of those scams. Normally a real estate contract obligates the SELLER to provide the buyer with title insurance and whether you choose to purchase with or without it may have been something beyond your attorney's control. You need to take the purchase contract, any communication between the attorneys under any "attorney approval" clause, and all closing documents, to an attorney for review. Without title insurance, however, if you were defrauded, you're right: if your attorney was remiss professionally your only recourse MAY be against that attorney's malpractice insurance. If the seller's attorney knew or should have known of the scam, there may be some liability there if that attorney is still to be found and had malpractice insurance......