Clouded title is preventing me from purchasing!

[Sahleem Lee]

Hope everyone on here is having a great 2020 so far! This’ll be a lot to take in, but please share your advice.

PP- $18,500

Repair- $30k (includes all fees and holding cost)

ARV- $88k

I’ve been plotting to buy this property for about two weeks or so. I got in contact with the owner and she was very motivated to sell, which made me extremely happy. When it came to having the contract signed, she was very hesitant. After leaving two voice mails and a text, it finally came out that she had a cloud over the title.

A few years ago, she put the house up for sale and she got a buyer. She asked for a written offer letter, but was manipulated into signing a purchase and sale agreement. She’s much older in age and trusted the representative to be honest about the documents. She received a higher offer on the property and proceeded to entertain that offer instead.

Around the same time she received the other offer, the 30 days has passed on the contract she signed. Countless letters have been sent to the home owner, threatening court and all types of legal matters. She doesn’t want to sell to the company anymore because of the situation, which is very understandable. It’s been years since they’ve attempted to contact her, but she’s had countless of buyers back out because of the cloud.

My thought is to call the company directly and bargain with them about it. She’s willing to pay them out of the purchase price to get rid of the cloud. Their original offer was 12k but she’s not willing to pay the full amount.

Any advice on how should I approach this? Or should I have an attorney help to make this go away?

[John Underwood]

What I would do is get a title search and find out what this issue is. If it is no big deal, pay cash for the place and move on.

Maybe get the place for a better price to buy it with the issue.

I bought a place for 12K last year and it had never been probated on a dad and then on a son. I knew no one was ever going to contest anything so I bought it cash. I plan on keeping it forever as a rental so I didn't care.

I can clean up the title later if I choose to.