XOME : Buying an occupied property. Warning on occupied addendum

[Vic Iyer]

Won the Occupied property auction and was shocked to see their new Occupied addendum (Which for some reason was not included for preview). Basically it states Buyer responsible for all the past HOA dues, Liens, taxes, DOC etc. There is also no pro-ration of property taxes for the year! The title company they had was lousy and missed out on city liens and utility liens. I found out about these as I hired my own title company. Basically this is like buying from court-house foreclosure auction. Thry also mandated a closing within 10 days. Very idiotic. Sent a letter through my lawyer and pusehd the closing by couple of weeks to get time foe estoppel etc. The irony is the HOA was not willing to give past dues information before they received copy of contract. The only difference is that HOA dues were limited to the lower of 12 months or 1% of the mortgage (came to around $3K plus the bogus lawyer fees of $2500).

Lesson learned: When bidding for occupied property through XOME make sure you factor in the past HOA dues, no-proration of property taxes, past due property taxes, county/city fines, On top of it you have to deal with the occupants.

I have bought properties before on XOME, HUBZU, AUCTION.com but this this is the first time I am in a situation paying off past dues and clearing off liens. So  be xtremely careful with XOME occupied property auctions.