All Forum Posts by: Robert D.

thanks. bottom line the process is the following. I buy tax certificate, wait 2.5yrs till it expires and then hire an attorney to file lis pendens to get tax deed, correct ? do I need to do anything during the 2.5 yrs till it expires ? notices, publications ?

does anybody knows if those fees will be refunded the the tax buyer  once the homeowner redeems the delinquent taxes. so If I buy a PIN for $500 I need to pay $500 + $200 in fees. will I get the $700 back or just the $500 ? I am planning to bid 0%

NOTE: Statutory fees applicable to each purchased delinquency include: (a) $10.00 Publication fee (35 ILCS 200/21-135); (b) $100.00 Sale in Error Fund fee (35 ILCS 200/21-330); (c) $80.00 Indemnity Fund Fee (35 ILCS 200/21-295(a-5)); and (d) $10.00 Automation fee (35 ILCS 200/21-245).

State/county specific question. The property is located in cook county. I purchased the property on the Sheriff’s sale. I am not 100% sure if the current owner lives there. I peeked into the mailbox and the mail is addressed at current owner. I talked to the guy but he refused to provide  his name. I think we will need to start eviction. I believe I need to give him 90 day notice and then file for eviction. Does anybody know how to serve so that the judge does not throw it away on technicality ? do I need to have a name of at least one person of whoever lives there ? Can I just put on the 90 day notice “all unknown occupants”? Do I need to serve him in person or mail the notice or stick to the door ?

I have OAS that lists current owner to be evicted by the Sheriff. Problem is that sheriff will not evict anybody else who is not on the OAS. I do not want to waste time so I was thinking that if this person who lives there is the owner, Sheriff will throw them out. If he is NOT the owner then sheriff will show up and some point in 4-5 weeks and will not throw him out ..but the 90 days are already running. I would appreciate any feedback from somebody who has done in the past.

If somebody knows an attorney that does this type of evictions, please let me know. 

I don't record deeds to my properties. I buy properties on Judicial Sale or from owners directly. What are the worst things that can happen ? cook county allows to set up a fraud report..so every time somebody records anything under my PIN (parcel) I get automatic email about it. I value privacy and having deed in my folder is far better than to give constructive notice to the world that I own something. It does not matter if you put it into trust or LLC. Trust is required to provide that info (trust agreement) to IRS and LLC can be easily locked up online. properties I buy are free and clear and will never be mortgaged, refinanced or used as collateral…they just there generating cash every month as rentals...

I plan to put all my rental properties in land trust. I live in IL. IL recognizes land trust and there are many case law

I plan to include my rental properties on my personal tax return (schedule E). As a beneficiary of trust (I collect rent) I believe I can do that, correct? As far as taxation itself, does anything with respect to taxation change just because ownership of the property was moved to trust?

What happens to the rent money proceeds once personal judgment is entered against me and I am the beneficiary of the trust. I understand the lien cannot be attached to the real property, but rent proceeds being a personal property can be levied upon? Perhaps it would be better to put my wife and myself as a beneficiaries? Would that offer more protection if the personal judgment is entered against me only? She can still get the rent money, correct?

What happens to my properties if the trustee goes out of business. I am not the owner; the trustee is so I believe there is a risk that if trustee goes bankrupt I am losing my properties? Or there is some mechanism to revert the ownership to me in case trustee goes out of business?

As far as the trust agreement itself. Can I use the template that trustee provides or I will be better off to speak to an attorney so that they craft a trust agreement that is tailored to my needs? Last thing I want is hire an attorney who will use Chicago Title and Trust agreement and charges me $500 for “setting up” trust. to set up a trust account and re title property to the trust is pretty straighforward

this is just a tip of the iceberg ...the list goes on and on ...be carefull out there. there are so many less risky alternatives out there including working with good wholesalers. ...sometimes folks bid so high that the price reaches MLS levels ...crazy ...

I have been doing that for some time and this post is to warn all new investors about the risks involved

• 1.First of all you are not bidding on the address. Legally you are bidding on legal description that is included in the plaintiff’s paperwork that hopefully aligns with the lis pendens filed. That legal description might OR might NOT align with the location of the property commonly known as XYZ s Main apt Q. I have seen cases where investors needed to hire a lawyer because legal description was either wrong or did not align with the address. Lots of lawyer $$$ spent into asking the judge to vacate the sale or perfect the title because selling officer or plaintiffs’ attorney made a typo …and they do …5-7 law firms cover 80% of all foreclosures …lots of mistakes happen.
• 2.What are you buying ? is it 1st or 2nd mortgage is it receivership lien …maybe you are buying city of Chicago water lien ? it Is important to actually do a title search and find out whether lis pendens aka 12-CH-XYZ actually forecloses the 1st mortgage. Looking at cook county recorder of deeds webpage gets you maybe 60% information. you need to go much beyond that and only title company that has tools and access to the information can do thorough track research. they can provide peace of mind that whatever you are buying is actually what you think you are buying.
• 3.City charges and water charges. Lets say you bought a piece in Cicero or Berwyn. The property has $3K worth of unrecorded water charges (water garbage etc) – there was no way to know that before the auction because the charges were unrecorded. You could call the city but you are not guaranteed they will tell the balance to you. So what happens next? Legally, the charges should be wiped out but I guarantee you that those small, annoying cities will make you pay every penny…no matter if they follow the law or not. They will not release transfer stamps unless you pay up the balance. They don’t care if you sue them later to recover the fees …money spent on attorney will equal the balance so good luck with that ….
• 4.Possession : that's the fun one. So you jumped thru all the hoops you have the deed and OAS in hand you go to the sheriff to evict … sheriff 5 days, 5 weeks 5 months later (depending on the mood) appears in front of the property (they don’t care about your timeline..) to evict …and what happens…people who live on the property are actually NOT the owner (that are typed in your OAS or lis pendens) but somebody who rents from the owner so sheriff says good bye and wishes you good luck… sheriff cant evict anybody as they are tenants and supplemental forcible detainer needs to be filed.…viola ..you just got yourself the biggest mess ever..you need to go thru a regular eviction process. Such a pleasure can cost close to $1K depending on the lawyer and in cook county can take up to 1 year if they contest. During that time you pay city dues taxes everything. this eviction is much different than tenant eviction for non payment of the rent…you start with 90 day notice ..
• 5.What about buying vacant properties then….oh it is my pleasure to tell you what next. You must be aware of the fact that foreclosure process can take many years in cook county. Often times folks leave their houses …but they might leave water running..they are pisses at the bank …or frosty winter can freeze pipes and cause massive flooding. Neighbor might report it or not …I have seen houses that were condemned due to that reason. Buying properties that are vacant is even riskier than occupied ..it might cost you much more. I have seen concrete poured down the plumbing lines, fire damage so severe that gut rehab is what needs to be done. all that not really visible from the outside …question is ..can you enter vacant property ? sure you can ..but you are committing a crime called trespassing..some folks take it as a cost of doing business I personally want to keep my criminal record clean.
• 6.What else ..oh that’s the fun one ..so lets say you want to become overnite landlord and decided to buy multifamily e.g. Brick 3 flat. And the property is occupied. So you go there ..all checks out nice tuckpointing, somebody upgraded the electric service , looks like newer windows, cant see the roof but what the heck..it should be fine right ? so you bought it for 35K…85th and Wolcott..steal deal, right !! your friend told you that bad guys make a u-turn at 79th..so you should be fine on 85th…moving on..winter, 10 degrees outside, heating does not work …current owner/landlord cant be located, his LLC has an address that leads to a barbershop on 79th and Exchange ..nobody knows the landlord there ..what the tenants do..well they call the city ..they are freezing, heating system does not work …what does the city do ..they send somebody to fix it…HVAC guy charges the city, city charges the building recording the so called SUPER lien..what it means ..the new prospective owner (YOU !) needs to pay it off no matter what, judicial sale will not wipe it out…in fact if you purchase receivership lien on an auction it will wipe out the 1st mortgage. That can be quite a ticket …up to 30K if HVAC guys went crazy. cook county is one of the most corrupted places in US and A so HVAC guy might have retired on that deal. Good luck with your investment. All that happens when you never actually saw the deed ..so you are not an owner ..and you cannot do anything..because you are not a party to the case even though your money is kept in escrow by judicial sale. you can hire an attorney and get added to the case ...I call it opening can of worms ..
• 7.City of Chicago demo court. All savvy investors know that the crew that does the demo is tightly connected to city inspectors. They can demo the place if they really want to as they benefit from that. Demo happens often times because there are building violations. Even if a property is vacant boarded up secured…it still violates the city of Chicago building code because there is no watchem from 4pm to 8am (required for vacant properties)…. the information about the upcoming demolition does not necessarily need to be recorded. When you bought the property the city counsel might just filed the case. That’s even more fun than eviction of non owner occupants. You need to hire a lawyer, go in front of the judge, explain what you want to do ..and then city inspector says: nope ..the property requires $X to be fixed ..unfixable ..needs to be demoed..then what ?…time and money that you most probably never accounted for ..how could you ? you did not know ..the information was not a public record.
• 8.Back taxes. Many investors “check” back taxes online. they see the information “no delinquent taxes sold” and they are all happy …well not so quick. Go to the town hall and check the back taxes yourself. I guarantee you that you will FIND cases where there are back taxes but the system is not up to date and this information is not captured. You can find that out going thru the volumes and judgment books. That’s the only way to do it. 
• 9.What about legal aspect of everything that happens after you leave your check with judicial sale clerk? can you tell the difference between contested vs uncontested foreclosure case, can you find out who the judge is, when is the confirmation of sale, who to talk to at the plaintiffs office to speed it up ? what if the owner files for modification of mortgage the last minute. Do you know which attorneys know what they are doing when it comes to foreclosure cases ? there are only handful of lawyers who can really help you out and speed up the process ..most of real estate attorneys are "closers"..they know how to copy paste the legal description to the new deed, prepare bill of sale and avoid responsibility protecting their license…making mistakes while calculating tax credit on the HUD…or attaching their other client company name (not yours) as the seller…terrible
• 10.Ever tried to buy condo on the judicial ? HOA can really screw you …almost equally like those tiny cities stealing from you. There is no attorney review, there is no modification letter. HOA can say, you owe $5K in back assessment..which is far cry from 6 months back per statue and the only recourse is to pay in protest and sue..which I have done many times. In order to close (sell the condo to retail buyer) you need paid assessment letter from HOA …if you piss them off too early they might not provide the letter to you in timely manner and your deal might fall apart …I have seen that happen. Hard to get out of condo especially if you try to buy some dump in Palatine…there are professional crooks aka HOA over there.

Many times I see folks who come to 1 s wacker, empty their 401K on some property, they don't know what they are doing and you never see them again. Buying over there is one of the hardest way to acquire properties – it takes a lot of experience and knowledge. I much rather buy expired certificates or buy from homeowners directly. Heck try even low balling 100+ days listings on MLS. You might find a good spot for rehab or rent that way. At least you have some time to assess the situation, do some more thorough research.

I buy properties on judicial sale and sell them in as-is condition to investors/rehabbers . I don’t know conditions of properties. I disclose that in the state required disclosure form. I hold the property couple of weeks maybe a month before I sell them. I operate mostly in Chicago area. My attorney advised me not to provide affidavit of title. He says that affidavit of title opens up a seller to liability and that affidavit of title is done only in Chicago area anyways. I close at the title company and provide title insurance. My problem is that I don’t want to give buyer’s attorney any grounds to dissuade the buyer from pursuing the deal due to “lack of affidavit of title”. If I was a buyer and seller did not want to provide the affidavit of title ..I would think that the seller is not sure about his ownership of the property.  I always record the deed before I transfer a property, all is legit. Judicial sale wipes out most of the junior liens anyways ..where is a problem then ? Would somebody give me an example of a situation where I could get in trouble providing “affidavit of title” ? Is not the title insurance designed to take care of all the title related problems that might arise to a new buyer after the property is sold ? My attorney said no : the title company will come back to me if there is a problem. So I pay for an insurance and if there is a problem they come back to me ? it does not make any sense.

I think that he does not want me to provide affidavit of title because this is he who prepares the deed, does title search, etc. he is a title agent (title agents get paid by title company at closing, not title agents attorneys do not get any kickbacks from the title company). I think here is the real problem. I buy and sell properties that have higher risk of title problems due to the judicial sale and since he is doing all the legal work he wants to limit his exposure …

what about REO sale? do bank provide affidavit of title. it's been a while since I bought REO property so I dont remember

when you click on the link below it will take you to the details of the foreclosure case I randomly picked. 

https://w3.courtlink.lexisnexis.com/cookcounty/Fin...

you can only see headers but not the details behind what has been filed. for example : the very first entry means that the foreclosure lawsuit has been filed against the homeowner

is there anyway you can look up the details or actual pages that were filed by the plaintiff ? I know you can go downtown and look it up on the computer there ...I would like to know if there is a way to do it from home ? I heard some attorney have access to those files ? does  anybody know how it works ? do you need to pay for some subscription ?