Most of you know that my son was moved to a group home a while back. We've been on the list to have him moved to a more local home due to his current residence being about 35 miles away.

However, last year the guy that owned (mortgaged?) the house behind me passed away and the sheriff's auction for it is coming up. I think that may be a lot better for my boy to be so much closer. We can most likely get support staff to handle him and help him keep the place tidy through human services.

The house needs a new roof and who knows what else. I doubt that I'll be able to outbid everyone for it but it's worth a shot. I suppose I'd be regretful if I don't even try.

My questions are how do I check to make sure there aren't a billion dollars worth of liens on the property and how does the bidding process work? How can I make sure it doesn't require more work than it's worth?

I'd imagine putting it into a trust would be best for him but I'm not sure. But that's getting ahead of things anyway.

Regardless of whether you can answer these questions or not, please pray for the situation. Even if the prayer's answer is "don't do it". I've never got over the sadness of him being so far away.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark123,

I am a real estate lawyer in Florida so I can't directly advise on your situation. I can assure you that you are nuts to do this without an attorney. Long gone are the days of courthouse steps auctions. Cash and carry if you will. You need a title search for mortgage, liens, estate liens, is the an HOA that has fines owed, are the municipal liens. A good title attorney needs a minimum of 10 days to sort all that out. Maybe more depending on how electronic records are in the location. Can you give me a location and I can try and find someone to help? Or do we have a member who can jump in.
Thanks

At a minimum you should get a copy of the terms of sale for the auction, which will answer at least some questions, such as whether the winning bid is contingent on the delivery of marketable title (or whether title has already been cleared).

You can also search the public records for the foreclosure filings which should tell you the amount of the bank's unpaid loan. The bank will likely be able to make a credit bid for that amount which means it will effectively be the starting price of the auction. Once you know that you can then determine whether it makes sense to pursue things further.

Not experienced in those things, however I would think the lien and foreclosure papers will be public record on file at your courthouse.

It should be online, go to the county court website and look up how to find foreclosure information. Having his name and address should
suffice in locating it, you can see the whole court filing by the lender, loan amount, balance, payments that are late.

Even though it has a sale coming up, you could contact the lender directly and see if they are willing to sell it off auction and negotiate a price, all they can say is no...

The flippers who know the property, see who wins if you don't, then make an offer to buy it at a profit to them before they do anything, or buy it and let them fix it up before closing if their expected sale price is reasonable for the area market, and they fix the roof, etc. Then it could save you a lot of work.

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
I am a real estate lawyer in Florida so I can't directly advise on your situation. I can assure you that you are nuts to do this without an attorney. Long gone are the days of courthouse steps auctions. Cash and carry if you will. You need a title search for mortgage, liens, estate liens, is the an HOA that has fines owed, are the municipal liens. A good title attorney needs a minimum of 10 days to sort all that out. Maybe more depending on how electronic records are in the location. Can you give me a location and I can try and find someone to help? Or do we have a member who can jump in.
Thanks

This is the info that I needed to hear. Honestly, we’re not in a position to be able to put work into a neglected property. It was just a hopeful dream. Thank you for your help.

You have no idea if the ex-occupants trashed the place before leaving.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
You have no idea if the ex-occupants trashed the place before leaving.

He didn’t. He just died in it. The family said it was complications due to vaccine injury.

Can you approach the estate directly and buy it out of foreclosure? Or is it too late now and it’s in the hands of the sherriff sale ?

Will you be expected to pay in full the day of sale in cash/check or will you be given 30 days to close?

If it’s cash day of sale it’s going to cost you come cash to have the title looked at before you bid.

Find out all terms of the sale so you will know how to approach this deal.

If it’s a Sheriff’s sale, does that mean Court ordered? Sometimes on Court ordered sales the sale can be resended for an entire year after the sale if someone steps forward and pays whatever is needed.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
Can you approach the estate directly and buy it out of foreclosure? Or is it too late now and it’s in the hands of the sherriff sale ?

We approached them before the sheriff got involved. They said they will not deal with us. I tried to explain that the guy isn’t going to pay him unless they have a collection agent in the great beyond but they couldn’t do anything.

I may still go to the auction but we’re probably going to pass on this without proof of it being clear of any liens.

Here's how it generally works around here.

House needs a lot of work, and is worth less than what is owed to the bank. Bank has to open bidding for what is owed and often ends up with it. Once they own the property they push it to an agent that they work with to sell it for whatever they think they can get out of it.

Many of these agents already have buddies who flip houses who will get first dibs on it, and it's not uncommon to see that they were sold within minutes of them being listed (if even listed at all).

If there's no bank involved it's a different story. In that case you'd essentially have to be a cash buyer.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Here's how it generally works around here.

House needs a lot of work, and is worth less than what is owed to the bank. Bank has to open bidding for what is owed and often ends up with it. Once they own the property they push it to an agent that they work with to sell it for whatever they think they can get out of it.

Many of these agents already have buddies who flip houses who will get first dibs on it, and it's not uncommon to see that they were sold within minutes of them being listed (if even listed at all).

If there's no bank involved it's a different story. In that case you'd essentially have to be a cash buyer.

Thanks. It just sounds like a terrible idea.

Are you allowed a walkthrough before the sale, just to see with your own eyes?
My folks have a house behind them in a similar set up but people in it are trashing it to high heaven, and I would like to get the land once they head to meth heaven..

Another thing you need to be aware of is many, or maybe most title insurance companies will not insure a foreclosure. I worked in the business for twenty five years and we never touched them.

You might want to call around and check with your local title companies.

You usually have to be prepared to close within a few days along with various other terms.
This isn’t something for amateurs.

I am an Iowa real estate attorney and I went to one of these to bid on a property last year. This is not me giving any advice as an attorney though.

I was mostly interested in it because it was on 15 acres and I had been in the garage during an online auction pickup. The terms of the sale with the Sheriff was you had to be able to show proof of funds for your bid amount (but they didn't check), upon winning bid you had to leave $100 cash and return by the end of the day with the full proceeds of the purchase price in cashier's check. If you didn't return, you would lose your $100 and possibly face a lawsuit by the foreclosing bank to recover the bid price.

The bank had the first bid which was the total price owed to date, so basically, they receive the property for the amount owed. There were a dozen of other bidders though, almost all of them dropped out within $5,000 of going above that price. A realtor dropped out maybe $20K higher. I kept going but eventually dropped out, I had too many reservations of possible issues.

In hindsight, I should have bid much higher. I had obtained a title examination from a County Abstract Company and confirmed there were no other issues, much of the property had been emptied in the online auction, the house was heavily smoked in, but there was plenty of meat on the bones of the deal. I dropped out around $240,000. The buyer later sold it to a family member who obtained financing for over $400,000 on it. Its probably worth over $500,000.

I keep an eye out on other neighboring county sheriff sales, but most sales aren't worth it. If the house was worth saving, someone would have bought it and the financing was close to 90% of the value of the house already.

In the situation I had bid on, the financing was somewhere in the 3% range from 2012 or 2016, so there was ALOT of equity in it, I think the guy had a girlfriend living with him and just sold everything and walked out instead of trying to kick her out, clean it and sell it. He got a check for the Overplus of tens of thousands of dollars after the sale.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Here's how it generally works around here.

House needs a lot of work, and is worth less than what is owed to the bank. Bank has to open bidding for what is owed and often ends up with it. Once they own the property they push it to an agent that they work with to sell it for whatever they think they can get out of it.

Many of these agents already have buddies who flip houses who will get first dibs on it, and it's not uncommon to see that they were sold within minutes of them being listed (if even listed at all).

If there's no bank involved it's a different story. In that case you'd essentially have to be a cash buyer.

Thanks. It just sounds like a terrible idea.

It's not my money on the line but I haven't seen anyone say to you to don't do it.

I heard an an attorney say don't do it without an attorney's help.

You have a good idea of wanting to know how much lien is on the property or any outstanding dues past the purchase price, so that sounds like a question that just needs to be answered.

I think people are saying just measure several times before cutting. I'm just encouraging you to just investigate further rather than just give up because of the positives you said: it's in your backyard and your son will be that close to you.

There are a lot of dangers to climbing Mount Everest and its sides are littered with the bodies of what used to be very motivated people, yet, some have managed to conquer Everest.

There's that saying, nothing ventured nothing gained. Just don't dive headlong without having figured where the bottom is first.

Good luck.

I guess I should mention that the house is not in great shape. If I showed it to you you'd probably be embarrassed for me for even thinking of it.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I guess I should mention that the house is not in great shape. If I showed it to you you'd probably be embarrassed for me for even thinking of it.

I have an old house on 1 acre with RV hookup, built in 1923 , still have the gas fixtures (built just before electric lights around here). Not livable but it would have been if the cost of materials hadn't gone through the roof.
No way to invest that kinda money now, the place looks respectable enough to keep on property, Small town of a couple hundred , mostly old folks. I visit there often, just to get away.
I bought the property 10yrs ago with the intention of fixing the house. I doubt it will happen now.
If you could get the property cheap enough and it's not an eyesore, it might be a good investment just to hang on to,
depends a lot on how much debt it has.