Help....someone wants to GIVE me a NOTE on a property....what do I do?

[John Huie]

I'm not sure I said that right in the thread title.  But here's the situation:

A friend of mine is in very poor health. He sold a property to "Lester" years ago and Lester has been making payments to my friend. This worked fine until my friend's health started failing and now Lester barely ever sends payments and my friend doesn't have the energy to do anything about it.  My friend wants to GIVE me the property and have me figure out what it will take to foreclose on Lester and get him out of there.

But...I know nothing about real estate other than paying on my 30-year mortgage on my current home.

Where would I even start with this?  How would he transfer the note to me? Am I even saying that right? Who do we need to get involved to figure out what paperwork needs to be filled out and how do we file it? And once that is done, how do I begin the foreclosure process?

Unfortunately, my friends records on payments are not great. Lester has been paying maybe one payment every 3 or 4 months rather than one per month like he's supposed to do.

The property isn't of high value. It's 5 acres in the mountains with a small house on it but not a very desirable area.

Can anyone give me any pointers?

Thank you!  I'm lost!

John