Interesting Tax Lien Situation

[Ben Skove]

I've been looking at a situation that's ended up giving me some confusion, so now I'm going to throw it out for wiser heads to look over.

There's a property down the street from my SFR rental that's been going downhill for some time; in fact, the city just condemned it at the beginning of the month. However, it's a strong brick 4/1 with probably 15-20K worth of renovation, depending on what the inside looks like. I could easily turn around and rent it for around $900-$950.

The building has had a tax lien sold on it to Woods Cove LLC, which appears to do tax liens in a lot of Ohio. The property appears to have accumulated another $4K in unpaid taxes, according to the auditor's site. I'm guessing this is in addition to the tax lien itself? At any rate, when I look at the city inspector's report, he notes talking to the current owner, who says he doesn't believe he owns it and states that he's going to provide paperwork to back it up. The current owner is listed on the auditor's site as owning it in trust.

When I look up the court case information, the current owner doesn't appear to be named as a defendant - it's in a previous trust's name. The property was passed from the trust named in the foreclosure to the current one in 2003. I haven't been to the courthouse to look at the documents to see if there are additional named defendants that aren't otherwise evident. Given that the redemption period in Ohio is one year(I believe), it seems unlikely to me that the lien would be from 2003 or earlier.

The county treasurer informed me that properties with tax liens can be bought up until the Sheriff's sale. I haven't been able to determine the amount of the tax lien yet...that's my next step.

I feel like there's opportunity here. My questions are:

1. Is it possible that the tax lien foreclosure was done incorrectly, or am I missing something? If is was done incorrectly, I would assume that the lien holder would have to refile the foreclosure?

2. If I determine who the actual owner is, is it worth trying to race the clock, buy the property from them, redeem the tax lien, and deal with the current tax delinquency? I don't know Woods Cove's strategy, either...if they simply foreclose and list it, sell them off in lots, etc.

Sorry for the lengthy post...any advice is greatly appreciated!