Need Advice: Just purchased a foreclosed house

[John Roberts]

Hi,

We purchased our first foreclosed house a little over a month ago via auction.  My son and son-in-law have been working on the house getting it ready to flip and are about halfway through renovations.  The daughter (mid 20's) of the previous owner show up today and wants to get her shed from the backyard.    She said that she paid for the shed with her money and was working out a deal to get it before the foreclosure, but got locked up in jail until now.  This is a pretty nice and large shed (probably 12x20 or so and worth around $5K).  Should I just let her have the shed so that I don't have to worry about her causing any problems in the future?  Will she see this as a weakness and keep coming back?  Do I say no, that it was purchased with the house?  Do I offer to give her some money for the shed?  What would you do?

This house is in a decent neighborhood and we will be looking to get about $150 - 175K for the house once it's completed.  We purchased it for $70K and will have about $30-40K in renovations.  If it doesn't sell right away, we will look to rent it out. 

[Leo R.]

@John Roberts it depends on what the law about foreclosures, and the contracts for that foreclosed property say....does the law and those contracts say that you own everything on the property after you close on it? (I would imagine yes, but I'm not a lawyer or a foreclosure expert).

Regardless, you may be incorrect in your assumption that letting her have the shed will mean that you won't have to worry about her causing problems in the future...you don't know her, but you do know she just got out of jail? Why would you trust anything she says?  In my experience, if you give an inch to deadbeats, they take a mile (so yes, she may well keep coming back).  

Plus, if you let her take this shed, you're allowing her onto YOUR property to do something extremely physical and potentially dangerous--which exposes you to a massive amount of liability (and unfortunately, some people would even take that as an opportunity to falsify some type of injury and file a lawsuit against you).

At the end of the day, you should consult the relevant laws and the contracts, and then follow what they say.

Good luck!