All Forum Posts by: Davido Davido

Talk to the county's Attorney.  Let him/her know your plan and find out whether the attorney considers your plan a violation of the county's "no commercial purpose" clause.  If the Attorney disallows your intended use of their list, find out the legal basis the county is using to justify such a ban. Have your own attorney look over the county's legal theory.  It could be the county is exceeding their authority.

Duke, you need to adjust your Excel cell sizes so that each column displays the all the information available.  That will be a good start.  I'm no expert but I suspect that your county, like mine (Thurston Co. in WA) provides its delinquent tax parcel information in a "comma delimited" format.

"Comma Delimited:

(adj.) A type of data format in which each piece of data is separated by a comma. This is a popular format for transferring data from one application to another, because most database systems are able to import and export comma-delimited data.

For example, data pulled from a database and represented in comma-delimited format looks something like the following. Each column value is separated by a comma from the next column's value and each row starts a new line:

Best Wishes

@Jay Hinrichs  Jay, the clear majority of abandoned tax delinquent properties in my area had multiple liens on them. Mortgages, 2nds, 3rds, DSHS, L & I, City Water, Sewer, LID's, etc,   Frankly, I have yet to find an apparently abandoned or vacant, tax delinquent target for Adverse Possession with a clear title.  It has always been a matter of negotiating for an assignment of either the non performing note(s) or of an unpaid lien.  Usually it is a matter of the lien holder accepting my offer or getting nothing.  There is usually not a lot of time before the parcel is subject to sale at the property tax foreclosure auction.  I found my targets by reviewing the county delinquent tax parcel list.  I've never had a competing bidder for a lien.  Often enough other people are interested in the 1st though.  My strategy in the future will be to identify the properties and acquire assignment of non peforming notes and/liens before the county files its Certificate of Delinquency to start foreclosure against them.

I have given some thought to how a lien could be placed on a property but it is speculative because I have not yet done so. Basically, I would look for any debt holder (Including govt. agencies), any jurisdiction authorized to compel an action (HOA, City, County), and would attempt to educate/convince them as to the value of placing a lien that I would promise to instantly purchase.

@Account Closed Yes, of course. Lien or no lien, "You still need open and notorious use for the prescribed period. And you need to pay the taxes for that period." I just assume that is understood. The difference that obtaining a lien makes, (even if you do not intend to foreclose it), is that having a lien on a property targeted for adverse possession provides both a legal justification for paying someone else's property taxes and an arguable claim for recouping the taxes paid -in the event that the adverse possession doesn't work out. In this post, it appears that Mike believed the property taxes he paid where a loss. I believe that if he had a lien, or was able to 1st obtain a lien, or to place a lien (for example via an assignment from the HOA), then he may have been entitled to recover the property taxes he paid, even though he concluded he was not able to complete adverse possession.

In my own two cases, I had targeted both properties for adverse possession, but decided to speed up the acquisition by foreclosing the liens I had obtained instead.  I was gambling that the value of my liens, property taxes, and costs would be the high bid at the foreclosure sale.  I did not win title to either property, one was modestly profitable and one broke even after deducting the cost of foreclosure.

So foreclosing a lien, as I did has application to adverse possession only to the extent that holding an assignment of a lien does provide a judgement proven method for me to recoup the taxes that I've paid on a Washington State property that I do not own.  With this strategy, if I pay property taxes on an Adverse Possession target for six years, (Seven year AP period in WA) and an heir claims the property just before my adverse possession is completed, I can still be confident of recouping the amount that I paid in property taxes plus the total due on the lien by either requesting payment from the heir or by foreclosing the lien. 

Thank you K. Marie P. for your many wonderfully informative posts.  And for correcting my misstatements.

Sorry Rick,  I hit the wrong button while typing and talking and misentering you name. 

@Account Closed

 Re: “You did not create a lien by paying someone else's taxes. As a foreclosing lender/lienholder you were able to get a judgment that included property tax funds that were advanced. Very, very different”.

Yes. I stand corrected.  Adding taxes that have been paid to a lien foreclosure is a very different process than creating a new lien.  Thank you.  My apologies to all. Though it took you and @Mark Harmon to accurately bring out the point, in my experience it is possible to recoup taxes that have been paid on a property one does not own,- by foreclosing a lien.

Re: [Obtaining a lien] “But let's say you could. You can only foreclose for the amount you are owed. How does that get you the property? The point of AP is to acquire property.”

If a lien could have been lawfully placed or held in the instance of this post, it would not be foreclosed.  Instead, the lien would amount to an enabling step towards perfecting an Adverse Possession. As you point out, lien foreclosure does not typically grant title to the lien holder. The purpose of a lien foreclosure is to reimburse the lien holder, not to acquire title to the property.  I recognize that it is seldom possible to end up with title to a decent property by foreclosing a small lien.  At the foreclosure sale other investors bid higher and closer to the real property value. The lien holder then gets paid only the amount due on the lien, the original owner or estate gets excess funds from the sale. The winning bidder at the foreclosure auction ends up with the property. So an investor who gets paid back only what he paid out (minus foreclosure costs) profits nothing (unless a substantial lien was obtained at a deep enough discount).

In the case at hand, since @Mike Flora wanted to obtain title to the property, he would not choose to foreclose a lien (assuming that he had been able to lawfully place a lien, or to obtain the assignment of a lien). Instead he would hold the lien and continue paying the property taxes until he could perfect an adverse possession. By holding a lien on the property Mike could justify his payment of the property taxes even though he did not own it.  In the event that an heir showed up before adverse possession could be completed, holding the lien could arguably enable recoupment of all the taxes he had paid. More likely another investor might show up with a purported heir.

Re: “I couldn't find anything that allowed mechanic's lien holders to advance funds to pay property taxes or bring senior liens current.

Yes. The cases are rare. My attorney and I have the same problem ascertaining the law governing many factual issues related to adverse possession.   As someone already said, Adverse Possession is not for the beginner, or at least not for the faint of heart. However if investor conduct follows the basic legal principals, an arguable case can be made.  In adverse possession cases, sometimes no one shows, so there may be no argument.  @Mark Harmon

@Rick H. and @K. Marie P.

Thank you both.  You raise good points which will later lead me to review the old files for a refreshed understanding of the entire proceeding.  I didn’t make clear in my post that in both instances of recouping the property tax that I paid on someone else’s property, I had obtained the assignment of a Jr Lien, then used that Jr Lien to initiate a foreclosure action and added the property tax that I paid to the debt due to me on the basis that paying the delinquent property taxes was necessary to protect the Jr. lien. My foggy memory was cleat only in that I was twice able to recoup the property tax I paid on property I did not own.

Rick,  I grant the possibility -if not the likelihood, that a person, like me –or as in this thread Mike Flora, could have an indefensible lien if the matter is contested on the basis that the payer; (1.) volunteered to pay, (2.) paid to third party (the county), and (3.) the tax paid had been levied against the property, not the individual owner.

Note however, that while items #1 thru 3 may be quite material to defending a lien, they did not prevent me from creating a compensable lien out of proof that I had paid property tax on someone else’s parcel.

I’m in general agreement with your item (4), “In order to create a lien hold position, a suit would need to be filed and judgment entered in favor of me, as creditor.” (Mechanics liens [not applicable here] need no suit in Wash. and can be filed in minutes Online lien filing.  In my case, in addition to having the receipt for taxes that I paid, I also had an assignment of a Jr. Lien.  I did file a suit and a judgment was entered in my favor.  The suit was the action to foreclose the Jr lien AND to include the taxes paid.  In due course, no one responded and a judgment was entered in favor of me as creditor for both the lien and the taxes paid.

Perhaps it was primarily the fact that a Jr. lien had been assigned to me that entitled me to pay the past due property taxes, as doing so protected my interest by removing the parcel from property tax foreclosure.

Item #5 did not apply in my case, “5) I cannot obtain a judgment on a natural person who is deceased, posthumously. That is what probate is for. I'd be, at best, an unsecured creditor.  ”In my both my cases Jr. Liens existed and had been assigned to me.  In addition, there was no response to my suits and thus no evidence in the record that the property owner was deceased.

Item #6 is correct. “In order to obtain a judgment against living person, I gave the issue of proper notice. This would require either direct service or Order to Publish beyond 'nail and mail'. “   In both my cases, I was required to publish, and at least one of the Judges required significant further efforts to locate the owner of record.

Your item #7 is likely correct too. “7) I have my own proprietary way that I handle securing these type advances but not about to reveal to others. Please do not ask.”   I certainly agree that there is always another way.  Moreover, I believe that there is also always a better way.  Mark, your methods were undoubtedly learned at significant cost in time, effort and money, -still many here would benefit from your sharing them.  Please don’t take your expertise to the grave.  I do appreciate your posts. Thank you.

@David Krulac -

Agreed. The county assessor-treasurer’s office is highly unlikely to refund property taxes paid by a non-owner -for any reason.  My point was different.  I suggested that property taxes paid on property that the payer does not own can become a lien on the property.  Liens can be foreclosed or remain on the property until it is sold.  If the foreclosure or eventual sale brings in enough money to cover the liens, the non-owner who paid the property tax would be reimbursed from the proceeds of the sale (together with 12% interest in Washington).

This has worked for me twice in Washington, though it may have worked because the foreclosures were uncontested.  And since I was only getting back what I paid there is no financial advantage to paying the property tax on a parcel I do not own.  For me the advantage was that by paying the property tax on these two parcels I was able to removed them from the county's pending property tax foreclosure.  That allowed more time to work on them. 

An interesting side point in Washington is that generally anybody can pay property taxes on another persons property.  However, that changes when the county files a property tax foreclosure action.   From the filing of tax foreclosure until the tax sale on only an owner or lien holder on record at time of filing can pay the taxes.  The reason given by the Washington Legislature forbidding non-owners from paying someone else's taxes is that some owners were being scammed by investors paying the owner far less for a property he/she was about to loose, then the property owner would have received in excess proceeds from the highly competitive property tax foreclosure sale.

A number of local investors say that the real reason for the change in who can pay property taxes, is that many county budgets were being seriously impinged by investors removing excess proceed funds that otherwise escheat to the county general fund.

Site    discussing affect of Wash excess proceeds escheating to county.

 @Rick H. Thank you for your adverse possession posts.  Always enlightening.

@Mike Flora,  Mike it is quite possible that the property taxes you paid did not need to have been a loss. In Washington State my attorney has twice claimed the property taxes I've paid on apparently abandoned property constituted a lien on the property.  In both cases I'd acquired at least one other lien as well and proceeded to foreclose my liens.  The foreclosure actions were uncontested, but neither Judge hesitated for even a moment about recognizing the property tax that I'd paid on someone else's property as a valid lien.

One judge did press me hard regarding, "what effort you made to contact heirs when you try to claim the property." as Bob Bowling suggested may be the case.

Sandy if a property has enough equity to cover both the first and second lien, and you hold the second, why wouldn't you bid the total of the first and second?  That would guarantee that either you win the property at the foreclosure auction and ultimate cost is only the amount due on the first, or whoever bids more than you will be paying off your second in full?  Whether you win the property by bidding the amount due on the first and second liens, or someone else bids more, all the amount due on the second would come back to you.

  @Sandy Uhlmann