1st deal- MICHIGAN

[Ryan Mertz]

I set up my website and went around to places I thought were a good place to drop flyers and business cards. It wasnt even a few hours until I get a few forms submitted.

There is one property in particular I have questions about.
I recieved the address so I went on my counties Deeds Record website and I seen that the person who owned this property had a quite claim deed.
What is up with the quite claim deed and how do I go about investigating the true title of the deed.
I understand the basics of real estate but I still cant figure out the quite claim deed thing yet.

Main question.
How do you go about researching a property that has a quite claim deed?

Also how do you find out if the property has any liens.
water,taxes,gas? can you guys give me some directions.

I would also like to know why when i searched the property records I noticed this person had 4 properties that had quite claim deeds and they all were with a "consideration of $1.00" can some one please explain what this is all about.
I think once you guys teach and advice me about the whole DEED thing I will be more comfortable making deals.

Thanks for your time its greatly appreciated

[Jon Holdman]

Quit claim deeds have their uses. Selling properties isn't really one of them. Some states, Texas for one, have pretty much abandoned them completely.

In addition to the things Jim mentions, they can be used to clear up ownership. For example, in a divorce, the couple agrees one spouse gets a free and clear property they jointly own. The other spouse can give the first one a quit claim. That serves to renounce all ownership claims and gives the first spouse a clear title.

If you buy a property with a quit claim, use a title company and pay for the title insurance yourself. Otherwise, you're just signing up for trouble down the road. Bill Bronchick says (paraphrasing) when you sign a warranty deed you're agreeing to be sued. If there's any problem with the title, you as the grantor of a warranty deed, guarantee (i.e., "warranty") the grantee against the problem. That is, you promise to fix it. Title insurance kicks in to help resolve the problem, but rest assured that if the title company finds some issue on your part (e.g., you managed to hide some lien or claim that was on the property), they will come back to you. When selling with a quit claim, you're making no guarantee at all. Which means for all effective purposes the quit claim is useless to transfer a property. ALL it says is that the grantor (person giving the deed) no longer has any claim on the property. I could give you a quit claim for any property in the US right now and it would be a perfectly legal document. It just wouldn't give you anything.