Looking to buy tax liens in Texas at the auction.

[Christian Reyes]

I am wanting to learn how to properly purchase tax liens in Texas at the auctions. The reason I say "properly" is because I had gone to one several months ago and bought a property, long story short I ended up bidding on the wrong one and got a junk mobile home that was literally almost split in half. luckily they redeemed it and I was able to get my money back plus 25%. I have been doing quite a bit of research on it and I feel like I have a good gist of it but I still have a few questions.

1.How do I go about doing a lien search, where do I go to find out if they have any IRS liens, Handyman Liens, HOA Liens etc?

2.How do I go about reviewing the tax suit (the property i "accidentally" bought was redeemed by the mortgage company and they stated that they were never notified of the tax sale so they redeemed it which I had no problem with at the time but I want to make sure that does not happen again.

3.How can I find out whether the property is homestead or non-homestead 

4.How can I find out whether there are back taxes or not (there was back taxes for the property I bought which amounted to 1600 so I had to pay those off as well as the money spent on the auction) 

5. is it possible for me to buy the Right of redemption of the owner. (with the previous property i had bought their was a "for sale by owner" sign in the front so i called the number thinking it was the owner to let them know I was going to be removing it and that the property was auctioned off to me at the tax sale, long story short it ended up being these 2 guys who had nothing to do with the property that said they could link me up with the owner and sell me the right of redemption. Me being 20 years old and not knowing much I got excited and agreed to purchase them for 5k we set up a date to close at the title company but I never showed up because I found out that they had nothing to do with the property and they were just going to make a quick 3k off me and give the owner 2k for the rights.) 

So I am wanting to know if its legal for them to do that and is it legal for you to purchase "the rights of redemption" so I would not have to wait 6 months. 

as you can see my first purchase was a great but scary learning experience for me but I don't want to make the same mistakes again. 

Can anyone point me in the right direction and help me out if I missed anything else I should know.