A three-part article.
Due diligence has always been part of real estate transactions. Purchasers of, and lenders secured by, real property have always needed to send someone out to "check under the hood" of the property they were planning to acquire or to use as collateral for loans. But just as increased use of complex technologies, such as on-board computers, have made it more complicated to check out a used car thoroughly, increasing use of complex legal technologies, such as securitized lending, and increasingly complex regulations governing real property have made the process of checking out interests in real estate more complex, and due diligence has assumed greater importance in many transactions.
