Title questions with heirs, judgments, and debt collections agencies
HELP! Complicated title question....
So, I have a property. Sellers inherited it. There are 3 siblings. 1 of the sibling had 3 judgments filed against her when she owned her interest in the house. 2 years later she quit-claimed her interest to one of the other siblings. When title search was done, her 3 judgments showed up, and in NC personal judgments automatically attach to any real property owned by the debtor.
The house is only worth $25K, total amount of judgments is $44K.
The 3 judgments were filed in 2006 & 2007. The creditors are debt-collection agencies that have been very aggressive with their collection methods (we learned this when we pulled the files from the courthouse).... but they don't know that the sibling had an ownership interest in this property.
The creditors are Unifund CCR Partners and Midland Funding in case you've dealt with them before.
So what do you think we should do?
1. Buy the property without paying anything on the judgments and hope the creditors don't find out about it and let the judgments fall off after the statutory 10 year period expires? We would obviously negotiate down a hefty discount for taking the extra risk
2. Wait until the judgments fall off in 1-2 years and then proceed with the purchase hoping the sellers don't find someone else to sell to in the meantime?
3. Contact the creditors and try to negotiate a release fee of some kind? If we do this, then they would be alerted that this property exists as a way of paying off at least some of the amount owed and they might try to force the sale.
4. Something else?