DeVore Law Offices handles the full range of Illinois real estate work — from a clean residential closing to a complicated buy-sell agreement, a contract dispute, or a property line that needs to be defended in court. It is a specialty Tom DeVore graduated from law school with honors in, and one the firm has built on for more than fifteen years. Few questions come up here that we haven't seen before.
The signed contract is the case. Whether you are buying a home, selling a farm, putting a commercial building under contract, or working out a buy-sell with a business partner, the language on the page is what controls the outcome — for the closing, and for any dispute that comes after. Lawyers who treat real estate as paperwork miss that. Real estate is not paperwork. It is a set of long-term promises about the most expensive thing most clients will ever own.
The same logic applies on the dispute side. Property lines, easements, and title defects don't go away on their own. They get worse — more expensive, more contested, harder to prove — every year they sit. The neighbor who built across the line ten years ago is now claiming adverse possession. The easement that "everybody knew about" was never recorded. The seller swore the basement didn't leak.
Whether the work is transactional or contested, the standard is the same: read the documents, understand the chain of title, know the case law, and tell the client the truth about what they are looking at.
— The way the firm has approached real estate work in central and southern Illinois for more than fifteen years.
From a clean closing to a contested property line, the firm handles the full range of Illinois real estate work. Below is the day-to-day.
Multi-parcel transactions, owner-financed deals, contracts with contingencies that actually mean something, and the kind of buy-sells where the standard form will not do the job. Drafted to protect the client, not just to get the file closed.
Contract review, title work, mortgage and lender coordination, deed preparation, settlement statement review, and a closing that is on time, in order, and free of last-minute surprises. Flat-fee where the deal is straightforward.
Commercial purchases and sales, leases, 1031-exchange coordination, environmental and zoning diligence, and multi-tenant property work. Drafting that gives the buyer or seller the position they are actually paying for.
Farm purchase and sale, tenant-farmer leases, division of family-owned ground, FSA program continuity, and the unique title and survey questions that come up on rural acreage.
Breach of contract, failure to close, earnest-money disputes, specific performance, and disputes over contingencies, inspections, and disclosures. Where settlement is right, we negotiate it. Where it is not, we litigate it.
Survey disputes, encroachments, fence lines that have moved over the years, and adjoining-owner disagreements that have gone on long enough. Coordination with licensed surveyors and, when needed, suits to establish the line in court.
Express, implied, prescriptive, and easements by necessity. Drafting, enforcement, modification, and termination — including the access disputes that come up on rural property and shared driveways.
Clouds on title, missing chain links, old mortgages and judgments that were never released, heirship questions, and quiet-title actions to clean up a parcel and make it marketable again.
Both sides of the claim — owners defending against a neighbor's adverse-possession assertion, and clients seeking to perfect title to land they have openly used for the statutory period.
Drafting installment-sale contracts with the protections each side actually needs, default and forfeiture proceedings under Illinois law, and conversion to deed at the end of the term.
Illinois Residential Real Property Disclosure Report claims — and defenses — when a buyer discovers a problem after closing the seller knew about. Inspection-report disputes, mold, foundation, water, and septic issues.
Filing, enforcement, and defense of mechanic's liens under the Illinois statute, including the strict notice and timing rules that decide whether a lien sticks or goes away.
Tom DeVore graduated from law school with honors in real estate. It is not a marketing line — it is the area he studied most carefully, took the most seriously, and built his practice around. Over more than fifteen years, the firm has handled residential closings, commercial transactions, multi-parcel farm deals, complicated buy-sells, and the full range of real estate disputes — contract, boundary, easement, title, and adverse possession — across more than fifty counties in central and southern Illinois.
Before law school, Tom worked in accounting and finance. In a closing, in a settlement statement, in a calculation of damages on a busted deal, that background pays off in real dollars.
Law-school concentration in real estate — built on by fifteen-plus years of doing the work, not just talking about it.
Property disputes prepared for court from day one. Settlement, when it comes, comes from preparation.
You will understand the contract, the title commitment, and what you are signing — at every step.
Tom DeVore handles your matter personally. You are not handed off to an associate the day you sign.
An initial conversation, in person or by phone, to understand what you are buying, selling, or fighting over. You will leave knowing whether the firm is the right fit and what your realistic options look like. For transactions, we will tell you what the deal needs and what it is going to cost. For disputes, we will give you a straight read on the strengths and the weaknesses.
Contract, title commitment, survey, deed, easement, disclosure report, prior judgments — whatever the matter requires. Real estate work lives or dies on the documents, and the diligence happens before anyone signs anything that cannot be unsigned.
On the transaction side, drafting the contract and addendums that actually fit the deal, negotiating language with the other side, and getting to a closing the client can live with. On the dispute side, the appropriate petition: breach of contract, specific performance, quiet title, ejectment, easement enforcement.
Where the matter is a deal, we close. Where the matter is a dispute, we settle if the settlement is the right one and try the case if it is not. Either way, the documentation is built so the result holds up — at closing and ten years later.
Recorded deeds, releases of old liens, judgment satisfactions, and clean files the client keeps. For litigated matters, judgment recorded against the land where appropriate so the result follows the property.
Real estate questions tend to come back — a neighbor builds something, an old contract is found, a beneficiary wants to sell. When that happens, you call the same lawyer who handled the matter the first time.
For standard residential closings, flat fees are usually available and quoted up front. Commercial transactions, complicated buy-sells, and disputes are typically billed hourly against a retainer, with the rate disclosed in writing before any work begins.
You will know what the matter is likely to cost before we start.
A residential closing generally runs four to eight weeks from contract to keys. Commercial and farm transactions take longer because diligence takes longer. Real estate disputes vary widely — many resolve in a few months, contested cases run a year or more.
We will give you an honest estimate after the initial call.
Phone calls returned within one business day. Contract drafts, title work, and court filings explained in plain English when they happen.
You will know what is going on in your matter without having to chase it down.
"We had a contract dispute on a commercial building where the seller tried to walk away three days before closing. Tom got the suit filed, the lis pendens recorded, and the seller back to the table inside of two weeks. We closed at the price we'd agreed to."
"My neighbor put up a fence twelve feet onto our farm ground and said he'd been using it for years. Tom got the survey done right, walked us through the adverse possession defense, and the court entered judgment in our favor. The fence came down."
You are not legally required to use one for every closing, but it is genuinely cheap insurance. A real estate attorney reviews the contract before you are locked in, watches the title work, prepares or reviews the deed, and is present at the closing table. Most of the disasters we see started with a contract no lawyer ever looked at.
Anything beyond a clean owner-to-owner residential sale. Multi-parcel deals, owner financing, farm ground with leases, commercial property with environmental questions, deals with contingencies that need to be drafted carefully — these are not form-contract situations. The form contract gets used anyway, and that is where most disputes start.
Depending on the contract, you may have a claim for specific performance (an order compelling the sale to close at the agreed price), damages, or both. The first move is often a lis pendens — a recorded notice that the property is in litigation — which usually gets the other side's attention quickly.
Start with a licensed survey of record. Most boundary disputes are resolved once a competent surveyor walks the line and pins it. Where the disagreement persists — adverse possession, prescriptive easement, or an old fence treated as the line for decades — there are legal doctrines on both sides, and a quiet-title or ejectment action is sometimes necessary.
A cloud is anything in the chain of title that creates uncertainty about who owns the property — an old mortgage never released, an heir whose interest was never conveyed, a tax sale that never closed, a misdescribed deed. The fix depends on the defect. Sometimes a release or corrective deed is all that is needed. Sometimes a quiet-title action is the only way to clear it.
Sometimes. Illinois recognizes easements that arise by implication, by necessity, and by prescription — none of which require a recorded document. Whether a particular unrecorded easement is enforceable depends on facts that have to be developed. The safer course is always to put easements in writing and record them, before the next owner takes the land.
Illinois requires sellers of residential property to complete a Residential Real Property Disclosure Report. A seller who knowingly fails to disclose a material defect can be liable for the cost of repair and, in some cases, additional damages. The first step is documenting what the defect is, what it costs to fix, and what the seller actually knew.
The Illinois Mechanic's Lien Act has strict deadlines and notice requirements that decide whether a lien is valid. Miss them and the lien fails. The earlier we are involved — both for contractors filing and for owners defending — the more usable the result is.
Yes. The firm regularly handles transactions and disputes across central and southern Illinois — from the Metro East counties (Madison, St. Clair, Bond, Clinton, Monroe, Macoupin) up through the I-55 and I-72 corridors (Montgomery, Christian, Sangamon, Macon) and south through Effingham, Marion, Jefferson, Williamson, and the rest of southern Illinois. Initial calls can be by phone or video.
The 15-minute call is no-cost and to the point. It is not a legal advice session — the only question on the table is whether having this firm represent you is likely to be in your interest. If it is, we will talk about what happens next. If you are better served by another lawyer, or by handling the matter without one, we will tell you so.
Everything you share is confidential. Submitting this form does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Tom DeVore handles residential and commercial transactions, title issues, boundary disputes, and property litigation across Illinois. Before law, he worked in accounting — closing statements, tax pro-rations, and lender packages don't slow him down. You'll get a straight answer about what your deal really looks like and what to do about any problems on the title.
More about how Tom works →Whether the matter is a closing, a complicated buy-sell, or a property line that needs to be defended, the work is the same: read the documents, understand the chain of title, and tell the client the truth about what they are looking at.