Private lender wants to change name/address

[Ryan Gaus]

I am curious how everyone would handle this...

My partner and I have had a private money loan (owner finance) on a property that we purchased several years ago.  There are still ~10 years left on the note.  I do not know all of the details, but it seems like the person that holds the note is getting up there in age, and has medical problems (coupled with dementia, I believe).  His wife has sent us a text message saying she has moved, and is asking us to now start saying payments to her daughter.  I have not been given any direction or instruction to do so by the note holder, but it sounds like he does not have the ability to give us those instructions personally.  The last check I mailed to them in November was returned to sender as undeliverable by the USPS.

I am empathetic to their situation, but I want to make sure that we are dotting our i's and crossing our t's.  I really don't want to have any issues down the line when we sell the property or pay off the loan and need to clear the lien.

I've asked for an official letter notifying us of the transfer, for our records, but have been unsuccessful in getting one.  We have also been unable to pay the November or December loan payment, as a result.

How would you address this?

[Robin Simon]

do the actual note documents govern this issue at all?  The first place to look is how the note itself was written, a good set of docs would have covered these situations in the doc language itself