Investor · Wauwatosa, WI · Member since 2013 · 53 posts · 9 votes
Found a property via driveby...
Researching it and find out that the owners were killed during a standoff over a year ago(not at the property).
There is a 'LPS' notice on the property. Their website suggests you contact the assessors office to find out the owner. The assessors office still has this fellow listed as the owner.
Taxes have both deceased as owners. No taxes have been calculated for 2013
I'm not able to find any indication that the property has been foreclosed.
No one has opened probate.
I would think(please correct me if Im wrong) that the register of deeds would still have it in the decedents names as well until the property is sold?
How much is the property worth and approx. how much is owed on the mortgage(s)? There is no point is pursuing anyone unless there is significant equity in the property. I'd put the odds of there being significant equity at 20-1.
This is a stretch but…if all else fails you might want to contact the county morgue in the jurisdiction where the owner died and see who claimed the body. Most likely it was family and they would have had to produce some type of identification. Administration may be able to share that with you and that could reduce your search to one telephone call. Just a thought.
Another option is to check the obituary to see if relatives are listed. Many papers print the obits on-line so it may just require a simple search on the computer to get a lead.
What do you mean "stand off" as in criminal activity? The LPS may be to seize the property, if so, you'll need to wait, the agency involved will have it auctioned off most likely. :)
The incident happened over a year ago, they usually take this amount of time to auction it off?
The LPS gives this information on their site, they don't specify which bank they were hired by....
"I am interested in obtaining information about a property posted with your company’s contact information.
LPSFS is merely a vendor hired to provide various services for financial institutions across the county. In accordance with the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act of 1999 (Federal legislation concerning the protection and disclosure of non-public personal information), we have no ownership interest in the referenced property and suggest you contact your local County Tax Assessor, Clerks Office or County Sheriff Office. In most states, these agencies will have the owner of record on file and that may assist you in obtaining the information needed.
How much is the property worth and approx. how much is owed on the mortgage(s)? There is no point is pursuing anyone unless there is significant equity in the property. I'd put the odds of there being significant equity at 20-1.
Rooster-man asked the most important question: how much potential equity are you chasing?
Finding people can require lots of work perform in due diligence and skip tracing. Once you've determined the equity is sufficient for you to pursue, consider using the free, social security death index and see if next of kin are named and there whereabouts.
@Dale G. Why not go to the county recorder's website and pull up the mortgage information and, if applicable, the filed assignments for the mortgage. You may have to pull the MERS number on line to find the actual servicer. You may be able to buy the loan docs from the lender through the servicer for less than what the property is worth. Wisconsin is a State that does take some time for foreclosure, but you may be able to fast-track it since the property is vacant. You'll be able to use that process to wipe out subordinate liens (save, of course, taxes, etc). The lender will spend a lot of time and money going through the foreclosure process, so you should be able to get it at a significant discount. I would have to know more about the loan balance and property value to be sure, but that might be a route to take. Become the lender...take over the property...you are the new owner.
@Rick, I don't think 6 hours is giving up easy when I'm a wholesaler, I think its over kill. I've continued so I could learn which I did....I wasn't aware that mortgage information was online...off I go again!
Thank you for the level of detail @Doug
I read how to highlight someone's name but just remember the @ sign, forgive me.
@Dale G. , you can use the @ and the first 3 letters of their name if they have posted in the topic or if they are a colleague of yours, or you can use @ and ? to list everyone who posted in the topic.
I would check to see if there is a mortgage against the property, here that would be in the Recorder of Deeds office. If there is a mortgage I would then contact that mortgage company. I would also look for other liens such as judgments, and other liens of record, hoping to contact them for a forwarding address to an heir.
I would also check for a will, here that would be in the Register of Wills office. if there is a will, it often times has an attorney's name, contact them. And it will have heirs contact them.
Here we have another courthouse office call the Prothontary which also has lawsuits and liens against a person, search and see if there are any leads there.
I would do a net search for the obituary in a newspaper for the deceased. The obits often list survivors, then contact them.
All of the extensive research can get exhausting pretty fast. You can use an experienced VA or two sounds like. Let them put it the work for you while you move to closings...
Perhaps it was missed, criminal activity may allow the government to seize the property, it's not a bank foreclosure, the government takes it, auctions it off, pays liens off and sends the equity or ill gotten gains through the justice department funding operations.
Call the Sheriff's Dept or county court records to see what the status is, if any, if there are such issues, you can't get anything from that sale. Show up at the auction. :)
So an update on this.....I was finally able to get someone at the mortgage company and the property is not in foreclosure and they have no record of that address at all. Looks like a title company would be my next stop...not sure whether I should continue to incur costs or just drop it.
If the government was trying to seize the property, then that would show in a title search. They would have a list pendens or a lawsuit filed, that names the property.
I've dealt with that once when I got a property under contract, that the D.A. was trying to seize, because they had indicted a mortgage scammer. And this scammer had created a similar sounding name company as the one that owned this property. They then created a false quitclaim deed to another property they owned and thought they were homefree.
I sort of unraveled the scheme and I naively went to the D.A., just thought that I'll show them proof that this guy didn't own it and they'll immediately take it off. The meeting was with a secret service agent and all my proof was then used in the indictment and I was supoenaed and ended up being the main witness that put him in jail.
I had done some business with him, not knowing that he was doing all this fraud. I bought some lots from him that he really owned. Then we put this lot under contract and instead of a money order, I sent a personal check. He was so comfortable with me that he cashed it. When my title attorney figured out that he didn't really own it, he didn't give me back $ 1500 in earnest money. That check and me as a witness ended up what made him take a deal.
I know most of this is not really an answer to your questions - it just made me remember. The lot was actually owned by a bankrupt mortgage company and I ended up buying 10 lots from the officer's of the company, who didn't know that they hadn't been dealt with in the bankruptcy.
Wow @Michaela G. that had to be quite the experience!
Why I don't think that this property was seized by the govt is that it was in both names....one was the victim and the other was the suspect. It wasn't sold to resolve any debt via foreclosure nor via probate....it seems to be just sitting there stagnant.
I'll let it stew for a little bit and if it bugs me enough perhaps Ill do a title search on it. It's been sitting there empty for a year, its not going anywhere.