All Forum Posts by: Kyle B.

Thought I would revive this forum as I had a few more questions come up. So instead of looking for leads via the probate office, I instead researched homeowners who have passed away and verified their address with the county tax assessors website.

Essentially my question is which method is going to be more effective: mailing marketing letters to the deceased's property and hope this gets forwarded to the heirs or decision makers in the process, or figuring out if the deceased has any children and mail marketing letters to these people (assuming I can find their address and that they are in fact the heirs). I have already cross referenced my list with the county probate records, and only a small amount of my names had probate files on record.

Thanks!

In regards to the property I had in question, I went to the Recorder's Office at the county courthouse and looked up the deed. No liens existed on the property according to their records. Most recently, FANNIE MAE received the Sheriff's deed during the last transfer of title. The woman who was helping me out said that typically all liens get wiped out when the Sheriff's deed is transferred. Is that correct? I'm not familiar with this subject so could only go what they Recorder's office told me.

I also checked with the Treasurer and their are no back taxes on the property. Aside from hiring a title company to do this work, are their any areas I have failed to research which could bring up title issues.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

Thanks everyone for the great advice.

@Naveen Desai

I'd love to connect offline to discuss more. Seems like you have a ton of experience with this. I will shoot you a quick message about it. Thanks!

@trevor rutherford

Thanks for the input. It's much appreciated.

For anyone else who has purchased a property through auction, are going through these steps a thorough enough process before buying a property at auction, or have others just paid a title company to do the search?

@Joe Gore, sounds good. Thanks for the tips!

@joe gore

Is the recorder's office typically located at the county courthouse? I've never looked up a deed before - will it be fairly self explanatory to see if there are any liens on the property or anything else noteworthy about the property?

Thanks!

There is a house on Auction.com that I plan on bidding on. I just spoke with a rep from this site, and they recommended I do a title search on the property before I bid on it. Is there an easy way of doing this without hiring a title company? I'm just not sure how it is realistic to pay a title company to do a search on every property that I bid on.

Also, this I a property I have already bid on while it was listed on the MLS - I'm not sure if that changes anything with my scenario.

Thanks in advance. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

@Simon Campbell

Thanks for the feedback. I figured that may be the case. However, I have noticed some owners are listed as "R/L Trs" while others just have "Trs". I believe "R/L" is revocable living, so the owners are still alive. Can that just as likely be the case with just the "Trs" designation or does R/L make that distinction?

Thanks!

@Wayne Brooks

Thanks for the input. This will save me a lot of time chasing a dead lead. One follow question to you or anyone else at BP. If I find a property with ownership of, for example, John Doe Trs, does the "Trs" most likely indicate that John Doe is deceased and the property is in a trust for the heirs? I'm finding a lot of properties like this as well on the tax assessor's site and want to know if these could be potential leads.

Thanks.

I have been researching banked owned properties through my county's assessor website. I've come across a lot of properties where the owner is listed as a bank (ie, Bank of America). I'm assuming this is property that has been foreclosed on. However, there are also a lot of properties where the owner is listed as a bank's trust department (ie, Deutsche Bank Natl Trust Co). In this instance, is this a property where the owner has passed away and that particular bank is handling the assets of the deceased? If so, what methods have people used to market these leads. Should I try to reach out to the bank in this instance or to try to figure out who is in line to inherit the assets?

Thanks!