"Order to Vacate Preliminary Order of Forfeiture"

[Tara Allen]

Hello,

I came across a single-family home in a decent neighborhood that's not being cared for, but it does look like there are people living there.

After some initial research, it looks like the person who owned the home was indicted on wire and identity fraud to obtain multiple fraudulent mortgages. This person was sentenced to a couple years in jail and appears to have served their time. But, according to the white pages it looks like this person is still listed as living there with some of their family members. 

According to the registry of deeds, the last document against this property was filed in 2012 in District Court by the United States of America v's the Defendant for an "order to vacate preliminary order of forfeiture". It seems to me this order basically says that if no challenges/or peitions are filed following the expiration of the petition period the US government shall have clear title to the real property. It looks like this all happened 3 years ago.

The property does not appear to be listed anywhere for sale (and yes, it's probably best to do a title search).

For my own learning, I have a few questions:

1. I cannot see any records via the registry of deeds where the mortgage company challenged the order, am I to assume that the government is now in possession of the property? Should I be looking somewhere else for this information? 

2. If the government is now the title owner, do they assume the previous mortgage or does the lender have to kick rocks? 

3. Assuming the government now owns it, what do they do with seized property? I've visited a bunch of websites they supposedly use to offload seized assets and couldn't find the property listed anywhere. If it was sold at auction, shouldn't the transfer of ownership be reflected at the Registry of Deeds anyway?

4. What happens to the people living in this property if someone does acquire it at auction? How do you evict someone if there is no mortgage/lease? Are they technically squatting now?

Clearly, the best person to speak with is an R/E attorney, but in the interim I'm just wondering if anyone has come across this before. 

Sorry for the long post!  Thanks