All Forum Posts by: Peter Walther

What state and county is the property in?  Have you asked a title company what they would require to insure title?

Hi Tom, let me tell you about a claim I worked on. Mom owned and lived in her house. She had three children, one of whom lived with her. As mom got older she required more and more assistance which the live in daughter provided. The other two children felt that since the sister lived in the house rent free, the assistance was in lieu of rent and they, the non resident children shouldn't have to assist with taking care of mom. Mom started to suffer from dementia and was moved to an assisted living facility where she passed away. Before she moved, the live in daughter had mom sign a power of attorney (POA) appointing the live in daughter attorney in fact (AIF). The live in daughter decided since she was the only child to take care of mom she should be the only one to benefit from the sale of the house so she listed it for sale, found a buyer and conveyed it as AIF using the POA and deposited the proceeds in a bank account held jointly by mom and the live in daughter. The company I worked for insured the buyer.

The other two children were upset to find the property had been sold out from under them and hired an attorney and brought suit to set the conveyance aside. After eighteen months of discovery in the litigation, I came to the conclusion the Plaintiff children would probably win. Since they did not want to sell their interest, because of their emotional attachment to the property, the company I worked for paid the Insured the policy amount since the fair market value of the Plaintiff children's 2/3 rds interest appeared to be greater than that amount. Otherwise I would have considered bringing a partition action. This is just one of many claims I worked on that arose out of reliance on a POA.

Until you have a survey you have no idea where the common lot line is, according to your surveyor.  Therefore you have no idea if your neighbor may be using your property.  You can't really tell him not to use your property if you don't know where your property line is, can you?

Do you know if your mother received a title policy when she purchased the property?  If so do you have a copy?  If not go back to the title agent that closed the transaction if they're still around and see if you can get a copy.

Does the neighbor have a survey?  If so ask to see a copy.

While you're doing that get your own survey done, make sure he/she knows there may be a dispute with the neighbor so extra attention can be paid to that common line.

If the neighbor disagrees with your surveyor's findings submit a claim in writing to your title underwriter, not the agent that issued the policy, but the underwriter whose policy was issued.  You should be able to get contact information from the agent or look at the policy and there should be contact in there under the Conditions and Stipulations section or look at the underwriters web site.  Let me know if you have any questions.

It happens more frequently than you might imagine, I've handled dozens of title insurance claims based on forged deeds, mortgages and satisfactions of mortgages.  I belong to an investor group and one of the members was telling me he flipped a house and was sued by the buyer's title company for unjust enrichment when it turned out the deed into him was forged.  I explained to him that's exactly what I would have done if I was handling that title claim.

Nobody can steal the title to your house.  If someone signs your name to a deed, the grantee did not get title.  Likewise, if someone forges your signature on a mortgage the lender did not get a lien on your house.  These clouds on your title however, may well be a pain to clear and you need to know how to go about doing it.

You should always get a title policy when you buy property or lend against it but most policies don't cover post policy matters.  There are some policies that cover after the fact matters but they're more expensive and are not available in all states.

Contact the County Clerk where the property is located and ask if they provide a notification service if any docs are recorded that purport to affect your property.  Many have started to do that because of an increase in forged docs in many parts of the country.

I'm not an attorney but I can't think of a reason why they would. You don't have a relationship with them, why would they have liability to you for not having insurance that meets some lender's requirements before the lender will lend you money? Maybe the Seller might have a complaint if the deal doesn't close and the HOA failed to have insurance in place that doesn't meet the requirements of the HOA's covenants, but if the insurance meets the covenant's requirements but not the lender's, I think the Seller would be out of luck also.

As I understand reverse mortgages, on the death of the Borrower, the heir(s) have the right to obtain a release of the mortgage for 95% of the current appraised value of the property. So if you're willing to pay something for the heir's assistance in getting a release of the property you might be able to do that, but of course that means paying close to or above market value for the property. In the alternative, if you obtain title from the record owner, a quiet title action might bring HUD to the table to talk about what it would accept to release the property, or if they fail to respond to the Complaint you may be able to get a court to declare to lien extinguished. I've had some success doing that. I've flyspecked the chain of title to find any flaw or defect to find something to allege why the lender doesn't have a good lien In addition, I've also alleged the lender has abandoned its interest by failing to bring a foreclosure in a timely fashion. You really talk with a good real estate attorney who practices in the county where the property is for advice. By good I mean someone who has experience with quiet title actions, most attorney's don't have that experience.

Have you tried to identify who owns the zombie houses and what liens are on them.  Is it possible to contact them and maybe get title to them and either repair if possible or remove if necessary? Have you contacted the government authority with responsibility for code enforcement, i.e. County or City and see if there aware of the houses, have they been cited for code enforcement violations, is it possible to have them removed at the government's expense if they are so bad they're a safety hazard?