First foreclosure, typical experience?
Just to give a little background, we've done quite a few deals before and have been successful on every one. They've all come with there moments but I'm pretty good at putting my head down and grinding away and in the end we always come out ahead. This deal maybe different however..
On September 20th we bought a home at the court house for $19,000. Of course we were unable to see the home besides driving by and talking to neighbors. This home had actually been in my family 20 years ago and I knew at the time of sale (1998) that all the electric had been updated so that was a plus. We had our contractor walk up and down the sidewalk and scope it out and he gave us a best case/worst case guesstimate bid of 60k-80k rehab. Comparable homes range from 130K-140K so still a very good deal. Besides, there is some sentimental value to the house so it's not all about the money, but we certainly don't want to lose money.
Anyway, it was supposed to be a 30 day close but the referee of the sale was apparently in no hurry and it was around November 15th when we closed. The day we closed I went to the home but the previous owner wouldn't answer the door. I left a note explaining the situation, drove around the block and drove back by 5 minutes later and the note was gone. Waited 3 days, visited her again. Still no answer so I left another note explaining we were willing to give her $1500 to vacate the premises in 10 days and that she could leave any belongings behind and we'd dispose of them (she was a hoarder). I said if I didn't hear from her in 3 days we'd proceed with eviction. On the 3rd day she emailed me and said she had no place to go and that she wasn't leaving. We contacted our lawyer and began eviction proceedings on 28th.
On November 30th she was "served" with a copy of the referee's deed and a notice to quit, which she didn't respond to so we asked for a court date. Now get this, the county in which the property resides had the judge vacate his position so they have no sitting judge and we will not have our case heard until February 3rd. So our hands were tied, couldn't do anything. I thought this would pretty much be the most frustrating thing I'd deal with in real estate. I was wrong.
December 26th, my phone rings and it's one of the neighbors to the property. She said that there were multiple police cars and ambulances there. By the time we made it over there it was quite, so I stopped by the village police department to get any information I could. They told us that the lady had been using kerosene space heaters and that she had severe carbon monoxide poisoning and was unresponsive when they took her out of the home. Over the next few days we had gotten bits and pieces of information and apparently she survived after multiple surgeries. The fire department contacted the code enforcement officer and he condemned the house because she was using kerosene heat as her primary heat source and it was uninhabitable due to clutter and trash.
On January 3rd, when our lawyer came back to work, we contacted him to see what our options were as we wanted to access the home to shut the water off and winterize. He said that since she is not allowed back in we wouldn't be "disturbing the peace" so it would be okay but recommended we take a village police officer with us, which we did. I can't put into words how disgusting the home is so I won't even try. Any description I come up with would be underwhelming compared to the realty. The officers that went with us gave us a little more information as they had been in contact with her sister. The sister said that there were no intentions of her moving back into the home (she couldn't any way because of the condiment) and that they'd be over last weekend to collect some of her belongings. We left a note on the door telling the sister to give us a call to discuss the remaining belongings and that we'd be willing to help and to leave any garbage or things behind she didn't want and that we'd dispose of them. The note was gone yesterday but everything is still on the property.
Sorry this was such a long post, but this is where we stand at the moment. I'm frustrated with our lawyer, the situation, and for the fist time in real estate I feel like putting my head down and grinding isn't going to work. Any words of encouragement or similar experiences?