Real estate intake forms tend to follow a pattern: contact information, property address, contract date, target closing date, broker contact. The forms look thorough. They aren’t. Eight items repeatedly fall through, and each one of them costs either a closing delay or malpractice exposure when it surfaces late.
1. Has the client owned this property before?
An unusual question that comes up more than expected — in family transactions, rescissions, foreclosure redemption scenarios, and any deal where the seller is buying back. Prior ownership changes title insurance underwriting, can trigger transfer tax exemptions that get missed, and is a fraud red flag worth surfacing on day one.
2. Marital status and spousal joinder
In community-property states, in states with surviving dower or curtesy holdovers, and in transactions involving a primary residence under state homestead law, spousal joinder may be required even when only one spouse is on title. Skip the joinder and the deed may be void or voidable — and title insurance won’t issue clean. The intake should ask “Are you married?” and “Is your spouse a U.S. citizen or permanent resident?” as separate questions, because the second affects FIRPTA analysis on the sale side.
3. FIRPTA exposure on the seller side
Asking the seller “Are you a U.S. citizen or permanent resident?” prevents the most common FIRPTA disaster: a foreign seller, no withholding done, buyer’s tax liability follows the property. The W-9 alone doesn’t catch every scenario. Ask directly on intake.
4. Source of funds for cash buyers
FinCEN’s Geographic Targeting Orders apply to residential cash transactions over reporting thresholds in many major metropolitan areas. Beneficial ownership disclosure requirements are tightening. If source-of-funds questions aren’t asked on intake, they get asked at the wire — which delays closing — or get missed entirely, which creates compliance exposure.
5. Existing mortgages, liens, and judgments — the unrecorded ones
Title work catches what’s of record. Some things aren’t. HELOCs drawn to zero still need a payoff. Judgments from divorce proceedings, child support arrears, IRS liens not yet recorded, mechanic’s lien notices, condo and HOA arrearages that haven’t ripened into liens — the seller knows. The intake should ask.
6. Tenancy and occupancy
Is the property currently occupied? By whom? Are there tenants with leases? Holdover occupants? Family members who don’t have leases but live there? Each of these scenarios affects the contract terms, the warranty of habitability analysis, and whether a possession affidavit is needed at closing.
7. 1031 exchange posture
A seller doing a 1031 exchange needs a qualified intermediary set up before closing — not at closing. When the seller mentions the 1031 three days before the scheduled closing, the closing date moves. Asking the question on intake catches the issue at week one instead of week six.
8. Prior deed and title policy in hand?
A small question with large time-saving consequences. The prior title policy contains the survey, the exceptions, and the easements. When the client has it, multiple steps in the title work get skipped. When the client doesn’t, it gets ordered anyway. Asking takes ten seconds and saves anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours per file.
Common workflow mistakes
The same intake for purchase and sale. Purchase intakes need lender contact, title insurance preferences, and inspection contingency tracking. Sale intakes need payoff lender contacts, broker commission terms, and target net proceeds. Combining them produces a four-page form where half the fields are blank on any given file. Separate intakes for purchase, sale, and refinance work better. Lease matters need their own forms — residential lease, commercial lease, and landlord-tenant disputes are different documents with different questions.
No place to log critical dates. Contract date, target closing date, mortgage commitment date, inspection deadline, contingency removal dates. These belong on the intake itself, on page one, so any team member opening the file sees them immediately. A separate “case dates” tab works — burying dates in correspondence does not.
No flag for TILA-RESPA timing. Closing Disclosure revisions late in the process trigger the three-business-day waiting period. Intakes that don’t ask whether the buyer has reviewed mock disclosures from the lender end up scrambling at the eleventh hour to manage the timing.
A professional starting point
Templateez offers a real estate intake form set built on a clean litigation-format structure — case administration, client information, opposing party, real estate matter checkboxes (purchase, sale, commercial, refinance, title review, deed preparation, closing representation, 1031 exchange, short sale, foreclosure, quiet title, easement / boundary), matter narrative, key dates, jurisdiction, claims, and case progress. The 2-page client questionnaire covers background, property details, goals, and signature. The set is $19.99.
View the Real Estate Intake Form Set →
Use it as a professional baseline and extend with the FIRPTA, spousal-joinder, 1031, and tenancy fields specific to your jurisdiction and deal mix. Lease matters have their own dedicated forms in the catalog (residential lease, commercial lease, landlord-tenant disputes).