Furniture and car left at a foreclosure

[Allan Gibson]

I just purchased a house at the court house steps auction.  The house is fully furnished with a car in the carport.  No one is living there.  The furniture and car belonged to the widow that died.  She had a reverse mortgage.  I am told that the child have visited the house after the foreclosure was started.  Can i sell the stuff that was on the property when I purchased it?

[Jeff Copeland]

I'm not an attorney and this should not be considered legal advice. 

The furniture and stuff left in the house is probably more straightforward than the car (since the car has a title and ownership can't be legally transferred without it). 

I would suggest making (and documenting via certified mail, etc) a good faith effort to contact the heirs. Give them a reasonable notice and a reasonable amount of time to respond, but basically say "If you don't come get your stuff by [DATE], the furniture will be disposed of, and the car will be towed". You may even want to provide them with an inventory/list of what you're proposing to dispose of, and take photos, so they can't say you didn't warn them (and they can't come back and say "By the way, what did you do with Grandma's seven-carat diamond ring"?).

When it comes to the car, call the sheriff's office or police department, and they should be able to point you towards a few tow companies that will tow the abandoned vehicle and impound it. Once they take possession of it, it's no longer your problem. The owners/heirs can pay to get it out of the impound lot if they want it back.