Sire´s last blog post..How To Deal With Rude And Obnoxious Commentators

@Visitor,
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to write such a long comment.

The technique may be a “harebrained” idea as you say, but it can work. I know people who have done it. You are right to question me and I will edit the post somewhat.

I said it should be in your toolbox. It should not be the first tool you reach for. It is a very specialized tool and not a reliable one. But sometimes it’s the only one that will work.

There’s no guarantee anyone will abide by this. If someone really wants the property, or the lien, they will bid on the fair price. If you scoffed your taxes to ‘clear up title’ and someone bids 80% of value, you’re out of the home and lose everything. Great strategy. In my jurisdiction, anyone buying for on on behalf of the defaulting taxpayer has to announce themselves and is required to bid at LEAST the amount of taxes and penalties owed PLUS any other unrelated local taxes PLUS closing costs immediately at auction, thus actually putting them at great disadvantage to other bidders. And why not? The point is to put the property in the hands of a responsible taxpayer and and raise revenue, not to put the property back in the hands of the flaky taxpayer and enable them to draw out the process even longer.

The proper route to clear up title is to keep paying your taxes and get (or buy) and record quitclaims from the interest-holders, as you say. This may be hard, but it may be cheaper than all the penalties you would have to pay.

The most common situations you describe–death and divorce–should not be that difficult to clear up. Old or ancient encumbrances are often insurable, and if not, they can always be written into a policy as exceptions. If you’re so sure that these putative interest-holders don’t have and won’t try to exercise any rights, then why are you so worried? If not, why on earth would you let the property go to tax auction?

There is one and only one proper way to clear up title when there defects that cannot be cleared through deed, and that is through a quiet title or similar action in court. It’s not any harder than a foreclosure of a lien, in fact it can be easier.

We had to close the deal in 2 hours. It was pretty sweet. The guyed owed 25k. House worth 150k “as is”. I think I am going to let the taxes lapse so I can buy the tax lien. I can find the wife via accurint. She has no money

Law,
Thanks for stopping by, good to hear from you.

Yes you can forclose on the tax lien. This will wipe out any other interests except IRS iens. However generally everyone on title needs to be notified. If the wife wanted to cause problems she could simply pay off the lien and you are back where you started. My guess is that is probably not likely.

If people in the chain of title can not be reached there is usually a process to claim that a good faith effort was made to reach them and that is sufficient.

By the way shame on you for not getting title insurance. Kitchen table closing??

Take care Law,

Ned

So what you are saying is that if you have a title problem – clouded title can’t find heirs etc. You can possibly buy the tax lien and foreclose on it to clear title? I have a prop. Where I bought – later found out their was a wife on title. I can buy tax lien and foreclose on it to clear title? FYI – no title insurance. Thx.

Law