Looking for opinions - is there a better way?

[Zachary Pearman]

Hello BP members!  First of all, I am still fairly new to BP, so please be gentle...

So here is the situation.  One of my best friends dad has passed away.  Everything was left to my friend, but there was no living trust for the property (please forgive my terminology if that is not the correct term).  That said, my friend lives out of state and doesn't want the property.  There is also minimal equity in the property too.  He knows I invest and we got on the topic of me purchasing it.

Here is where it gets interesting.  My friend made the first 2 months of mortgage payments since his fathers passing, while we have been sorting everything out.  I just found out that my friend just got an accepted offer on a house that he is trying to buy (apart from the property in question).  He originally talked to a RE attorney and he was told he needed to wait 45 days before he could do anything with getting the property to me.  Since then, he talked to another attorney and their advise was to just let his fathers property go to foreclosure since my friend was trying to buy his own home (understandable as my friend doesn't want this property, and he doesn't want his debt to income ratio to be thrown off while buying his personal home).

The real question is how do I go about purchasing the property if my friend has decided to stop paying on the property and let it go to foreclosure?  Clearly I cannot strike a contract with the father, can I go directly to the bank, does this need to go through probate?  What would be the simplest, easiest, and most cost efficient way for me to get the property?