Finding Heirs of Deceased. Is there time?

Question

Hello All,

This may be an academic exercise, but I want to learn how to approach contacting heirs of deceased owners of distressed and pre-foreclosure properties.   I was researching a house that is coming up in a tax foreclosure sale.  I did a drive by and there was a gentleman cleaning up the yard named Michael.   He said the city pays him to do so.

He told me that the owner died around 2006-2007 and that she has some family in California.  My sister in law is a closer at a title company and said she would do a title search for me.  My own review of public records showed that the property has at least 43K of back taxes and charges from the city, maybe more, but the lot is probably worth about 150-200K.

I was reading another post by @Rick Harmon. He suggested joining ancestory.com, which I plan to do.  I'm wondering if I'm lucky though and actually find an heir, would there even be enough time to do anything in Texas before a May 5 tax sale?

Tony Johnson · Answer

Wow just my luck that this thread is active: Trying to skiptrace and I've started my free trial with Ancestry but it is not as intuitive as I guessed it would be. The other majors are taking too long to get an account set up.

Rick H.

I thought that you used Ancestry for the skip tracing but it seems that you don't fully use it. To what capacity would you recommend Ancestry and what are the other applications you use?

Alex Hamilton · Answer

We just check for Obituary Records for family members, and call them for information using on line search engines which are numerous.  To your other question, we have stopped sales, the day of the sale, and made deals

Matthew Paul · Answer

Go to the courthouse and find the registar of wills , see if the deceased had a will on file . If so get a copy and see who they willed their assets  to .  Go talk to some neighbors , if they lived there a while they may be able to give you some info on relatives . Its a shot in the dark .

Randy E. · Answer

@Darla Holtzclaw, does the city where the property is located have online property tax information?  In my city, I can look up any property.  There is a lot of information available for me online, including the current property owner(s) and their mailing address.  If a business or LLC owns the property, the address may not be listed.  Usually, for inherited property, at least in my experience, the heir is listed.  No phone number is listed, but at least I get a name and an address.

Rick H. · Answer

As this is an action-oriented business, it's time to follow up.

Ancestry will only help you find the "who" but not locate them.

What you are venturing into is called skip tracing. Although we use some pretty sophisticated online application software, I recently bought some seven different books on the topic from Amazon for about $300.

Finding people is largely an art; less so a science. There are some very smart people who are better at finding others than my team. Michaela Graham and Kristine Poe among them.

Darla Holtzclaw · Answer

Update.

Well, I haven't had too much luck talking to actual heirs.  The granddaughter I thought I'd found ended up having a lot of information, but her grandmother was not the owner of the property.  It is another lady with a similar name who died at a similar time.  I am writing a blog about this property to keep up with what I'm learning about this process.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/6518/blog_posts/43888-part-i---researching-the-property

Feedback and any insights are greatly appreciated.

Darla Holtzclaw · Answer

Thanks everyone. I've been able to track down granddaughter in Waco and will try to talk with her in the morning.  Wish me luck.

Darla Holtzclaw · Answer

Thanks @Randy E.  We do have a lot you can do online in my county, but no the property is still listed only under the name of the deceased.

Darla Holtzclaw · Answer

Thanks for the referral to others who are heir hunters/skip tracers.  I like digging around and research, so I've been exploring ways to make money at it. I read an article about a skip tracer before, but it has been a while and I kind of forgot about it.  Interesting read.

http://www.wired.com/2013/12/skip-tracing-ryan-mullen/

Ron S. · Answer

To your question...If the sale date is on the 5th, time is not on your side.

Finding Heirs of Deceased. Is there time?

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