All Forum Posts by: Emmett R. McCarthy

If  you are thinking of bidding at the upcoming Cook County scavenger sale and need pre-sale help or post sale legal work, let me know as this is my primary practice area (I have lots of free info available). You will need to prepare the first take notice within 4 1/2 months of your date of sale, which many people are unaware of or do not know how to prepare.  Also be aware that many properties in the scavengers sale have "issues" (exempt, parts of roads, slivers of land, etc.) Good luck!

You may be dealing with a "wholesaler." These people do not own property but try to put buyers and sellers together for a fee. I recommend doing your own legwork and contacting the owners in addition to researching the properties yourself as noted by @Jay Hinrichs. If they are decent properties, why pay someone a premium for work you can easily do yourself?

If you ask the Seller, I am sure they will say they "complied." The issue is whether they "strictly complied." I suggest having an attorney who practices in the field review. As for as mortgages and other liens, tax deeds wipe all prior interests (with a few exception, IRS liens, municipal "police and welfare power" liens). The mortgage is cleared from title and the mortgagee's only recourse is to sue the borrower on the note.

I have lots of clients that are involve in these kinds of deals. Yes you can do it. Tax liens in IL are freely assignable. If the Seller knows what they are doing, the purchase/assignment price starts at the redemption amount and goes up from there. Be aware that you need to make sure the Seller has strictly complied with the Property Tax Code so that the lien is still viable.

@Ned Carey is correct, IL is a tax lien state. You can either buy the property from the owner and deal with the taxes yourself. Or the other option is to acquire the tax certificate from the tax buyer and then attempt to obtain a tax deed yourself. There are pros and cons to each option. 

Beware of using common addresses when dealing with delinquent taxes and tax sales. The PIN and legal description are what control. I have had real estate agents/brokers bid on properties based upon common address (which is frequently wrong) only to find out they bought tiny side lots or vestigial PINs. 

The Wheeler bankruptcy case is very fact-specific and if you read the differences in the way JPMC handled its lien versus Wheeler, you can see what Wheeler could have done differently. Wheeler is likely going to appeal but even if Wheeler "loses" it likely won't lose it's entire investment. One of the best thing about buying tax certificates in IL is it is very hard to lose your investment. You either get redeemed, get a deed or get a sale in error refund. Even if someone vacates your tax deed, they generally have to pay the amounts due under Section 22-80 of the Property Tax Code.

Feel free to PM with any questions. Thanks.

Send a letter to the land trust telling the beneficiaries you are interested in the property. The trustee of the land trust will then send it to the beneficiaries and they may contact you. As  mentioned above there are other tricks to finding out who owns property in a land trust. If there are any municipal violations against the property, see who the municipalities served with notice. Municipalities usually contact the land trust to find out the beneficiaries, then send notice to them. Good luck! 

Cook County is a great place to invest in real estate tax certificates. I have many clients doing so and doing well. Tax certificates are one of the few investments where if things go wrong you likely have a way to get your money back from the county, possibly with interest. If you are only looking for deeds, there are opportunities to get involved in the tax sale process to do so. If you are interested, PM me. Thanks!

Many times they have made an economic decision not to put any more money into the property. Most banks have REO departments for selling bank owned property, but if the spread is not great enough they won't throw good money after bad. As mentioned above, their business is not investing in real estate when the margins are small.

I  have clients ask me this question all the time. I tell them it is very difficult to assess what a client can and cannot do by themselves. I also can tell many war stories about clients who attempted to handle transactions by themselves and ended up retaining an attorney to clean up the mess, usually at a much greater expense than the initial transaction would have cost. "He who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer."