By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney · July 2026

Real Estate Intake Forms for Agents and Attorneys

Real estate is one of those fields where people assume the contracts handle everything. The purchase agreement spells out the price, the contingencies, and the timeline. The listing agreement establishes the brokerage relationship. The title company runs its searches. The lender does its underwriting. With all of that paperwork already built into the transaction, why would you need an intake form?

Because the contract is the middle of the story, not the beginning. Before you can draft or review a purchase agreement, you need to know who your client is, what they are trying to accomplish, what their financial position looks like, what their timeline constraints are, and what potential complications exist. A real estate agent needs that information to find the right property or price the listing correctly. A real estate attorney needs it to spot issues before they become deal-killers. And the intake form is where all of that gets captured, before anyone starts drafting documents or scheduling showings. I am a licensed attorney who has handled real estate closings, and I can tell you that the cases that go sideways almost always have one thing in common: somebody skipped the intake.

Why Agents and Attorneys Need Different Forms

Real estate agents and real estate attorneys serve different functions in a transaction, and the information they need at intake reflects that difference. An agent is focused on the practical aspects of the deal: what the client wants, what they can afford, and what is available. An attorney is focused on the legal aspects: title issues, contract terms, entity structuring, tax implications, and risk allocation. There is overlap, certainly, but the emphasis is different enough that a single form does not serve both well.

An agent's intake form for a buyer needs to capture the basics of what the buyer is looking for: property type, location preferences, bedroom and bathroom count, budget range, financing status (pre-approved, pre-qualified, cash, or not yet started), and timeline. It also needs to establish the agency relationship. Is this buyer already working with another agent? Are they interested in dual agency if the agent also represents the seller? What communication method do they prefer, and how often do they want updates? The agent's form is fundamentally a matchmaking document. It defines what the client wants so the agent can go find it.

An attorney's real estate intake form is a different document entirely. When a client walks into a real estate attorney's office, there is usually already a deal on the table, or at least the outline of one. The attorney's intake needs to capture the transaction type (purchase, sale, or refinance), the parties involved (including whether any party is an entity rather than an individual), the property address and type, the contract status (signed, under negotiation, or not yet drafted), the financing structure, and any known issues. Known issues is the critical section. Is there a boundary dispute? A title defect? An environmental concern? A tenant who will not leave? A zoning question? Each of those issues changes the scope of the attorney's work, and discovering them after the retainer is signed wastes time for everyone. This is the same principle behind every law firm intake form: find out what the case actually involves before you agree to take it.

Transaction Types: Purchase, Sale, and Refinance

Your intake form needs to identify the transaction type immediately because it determines everything that follows. A purchase intake needs buyer information, financing details, property search criteria (for agents) or contract review scope (for attorneys), and contingency preferences. A sale intake needs seller information, property details, disclosure obligations, and pricing strategy (for agents) or contract drafting scope (for attorneys). A refinance intake needs current mortgage details, target terms, property information, and whether the refinance involves a cash-out component.

Purchase transactions are the most information-intensive at intake. Beyond the client's personal and financial information, you need to know their financing situation in detail. Are they pre-approved or pre-qualified, and by which lender? What type of loan are they pursuing (conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, jumbo)? Each loan type has different property eligibility requirements, different appraisal standards, and different timeline expectations. An FHA buyer looking at a property that needs significant repairs is going to run into FHA minimum property standard issues. A VA buyer needs a VA-approved appraiser. These are not surprises you want at week three of the transaction. Your intake form should surface them at the first meeting.

Sale transactions require their own set of intake fields. Sellers need to disclose known property defects, and the intake form is where you start building the disclosure. Has there been water damage? Lead paint? Mold? Foundation issues? Pest problems? Boundary disputes with neighbors? Any work done without permits? The seller may not volunteer this information unprompted, but a well-structured form with specific questions prompts them to think about it. As a real estate attorney, I would rather know about the unpermitted deck addition at intake than have the buyer's attorney discover it during due diligence. A good real estate intake form walks the seller through these disclosures methodically so nothing gets left out.

Refinance intake is the simplest of the three but still requires specific information. The current mortgage details (lender, balance, interest rate, remaining term), the desired new terms, and the reason for refinancing (rate reduction, term change, cash-out, consolidation) all need to be on the form. For attorneys involved in refinance transactions, you also need to know whether there are any subordinate liens, whether the property is owner-occupied or investment, and whether the current mortgage has a prepayment penalty.

Property Details: Capture Them Early

Whether you are an agent or an attorney, the property details section of your intake form matters. For agents working with buyers who have not yet identified a property, this section is about preferences and requirements. For agents with a listing, this section is about the actual property. For attorneys, it is almost always about a specific property that is already identified.

At minimum, the property section should capture: address, property type (single-family, condo, townhouse, multi-family, commercial, vacant land), approximate square footage, lot size, year built, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and any notable features or known issues. For condos and co-ops, add the HOA or managing agent name, monthly fees, and any known special assessments. For multi-family properties, add the number of units, current rental income, lease terms for existing tenants, and whether any units are rent-controlled or rent-stabilized.

Vacant land deserves its own mention. Land transactions have unique intake requirements that residential transactions do not. Zoning classification, permitted uses, subdivision status, survey availability, utility access (water, sewer, electric, gas), road frontage, easement status, and environmental history all need to be captured. A buyer purchasing a five-acre parcel to build a house on needs to know before closing whether the lot can be connected to municipal sewer or will require a septic system, and whether the zoning allows for the size of the structure they intend to build. The intake form is where these questions first get asked, and the answers drive the entire due diligence process.

Financing Contingencies and Timeline

The financing contingency is the single most important contingency in most residential real estate transactions, and your intake form should capture the details that determine how it plays out. Buyers need to provide their financing type, their pre-approval amount, their target down payment percentage, and their estimated closing date. The form should also ask whether the buyer needs to sell an existing property to fund the purchase, because a sale contingency dramatically changes the negotiation dynamics and timeline.

Timeline fields are often treated as an afterthought on intake forms, but they should be prominent. When does the client need to close? Is there a lease expiration driving the timeline? A school enrollment deadline? A relocation start date? A 1031 exchange deadline? Each of these creates a hard constraint that affects every decision in the transaction. A buyer who needs to close in 30 days cannot pursue FHA financing, which typically takes 45-60 days. A seller with a 1031 exchange deadline has zero flexibility on closing date extensions. These constraints need to be on the intake form so they drive the strategy from day one, not discovered mid-transaction when options are limited.

For attorneys, the intake form should also capture the deadline for attorney review. In states where the attorney review period is part of the standard contract (New Jersey, for example, gives a three-business-day attorney review period), the form needs to note when the clock started. If the client brings in a signed contract on day two of a three-day review period, the attorney has one business day to review, raise objections, and negotiate modifications. That is a very different workload than a client who brings in a contract on the day it was signed. Missing that deadline can bind the client to terms the attorney would have objected to, which is why it belongs on the intake form in bold. The same urgency applies to any legal intake, as we discussed in our guide on intake form mistakes that cost you clients.

Dual Agency and Disclosure

Dual agency, where the same agent or brokerage represents both the buyer and the seller, is one of the most disclosure-sensitive areas in real estate. Some states prohibit it entirely. Others allow it with informed written consent. Your intake form should address this directly. For agents, the form should ask whether the client consents to dual agency if it arises, and it should include a clear explanation of what dual agency means and what limitations it places on the agent's ability to advocate for either party. This is not just good practice. It is a legal requirement in most states that permit dual agency, and the disclosure must be made before the dual agency situation arises, not after.

Beyond dual agency, the intake form should establish the scope of representation. Is the agent representing the client for a single transaction or for all real estate transactions within a defined period? What geographic area does the representation cover? What commission structure applies? These terms should be documented at intake, referenced in the representation agreement, and signed by the client. Agents who leave these terms vague at intake end up in disputes about commission when the client buys a property six months later through a different agent who showed it to them at an open house.

Building a Complete Client File from Day One

The real estate intake form is the first page of the client file, and a well-structured file makes the rest of the transaction smoother for everyone involved. Agents who capture complete intake information can share it with the transaction coordinator, the lender, the attorney, and the title company without making separate phone calls to fill in gaps. Attorneys who capture complete intake information can draft or review contracts accurately, identify potential issues early, and advise the client based on actual facts rather than assumptions.

If you do not have a structured way to collect this information yet, start with a form that covers the fundamentals: client identity and contact information, transaction type, property details (or search criteria), financing status, timeline constraints, and any known issues or concerns. Our real estate intake form set covers all of these categories with dedicated sections for purchase, sale, and refinance transactions, and it is designed to work for both agents and attorneys. The intake form captures the internal business information you need as the professional, and the companion questionnaire captures the client-facing information with appropriate acknowledgments and disclosures.

For attorneys who handle real estate alongside other practice areas, our estate planning intake forms and family law intake forms use the same structure and formatting, so your office staff is not learning a different form layout for every case type. You can also explore how to build a client file that actually works across practice areas. Consistent intake documentation is the foundation, and the real estate form is one of the most information-dense forms you will use. Get it right, and the rest of the transaction follows from a position of knowledge rather than guesswork.

Browse our full catalog of 164 profession-specific intake forms to see the complete range of industries we cover.