Deceased owner of property in my neighborhood

[Sam Tang]

Hello all!

So I happen to pass by a property I believe to be vacant frequently and out of curiosity I have looked into seeing if it is indeed abandoned. After reading multiple threads for advice on finding information on the property I have dug up the follow:

- Looks like the owner is recently deceased

- There is back taxes on the property since then

- I don't believe she has any immediate next of kin (its scary how I could find that information out from the internet). I found an obituary for her and it listed some close family members and the closest I could find still living was Nephew/Niece.

- I was able to also find a court case for her from the probate office. It looks like an attorney was assigned as "Personal Representative"/Temporary Conservator, so although I am not 100% what that means but it seems like someone was appointed as fiduciary.

- looking at public records and liens it looks like there might be a rather large HUD second mortgage on the property also (I would think at least 70% LTV)

The case is listed as closed since last month but does that mean the property would have been distributed to anyone or is the Conservator still tasked with wrapping up any assets, etc...? I just kind of want to know if I should reach out to the attorney or if I should try to reach out to the next of kin.

[Brian Gibbons]

@Rick Harmon

http://www.biggerpockets.com/users/RTPG1

Is awesome in Probate Matters.

You might want to ask him.