Thank You Mr. I Don’t Know

[Chris Seveney]

Got to give a shout out to a tax lien investor who had some random gmail address and went by the name Ben.

So, one of the unique things about note investing is when you buy a pool of assets is sometimes a seller is closing out their fund and will include assets that have no value.

back in 2020 when I bought a pool of assets, there were some assets included where the tax balance was greater than a property value. Therefore, it did not make sense to foreclose on these assets, nor keep them at a surface. So what I do is, I stick them in a file in check on them every one to two years.

Earlier this year, Ben reached out to me, wanting to buy the note on the property. I thought this was strange, and they commented they wanted to buy it because they had a large gain and wanted to buy it to offset these gains.

This was an immediate red flag. So I go dig out the file and do some research. Back in 2020 taxes owed or approximately $20,000 and the property value was worth around 30,000. Fast forward to 2024 when prices appreciated significantly, And I found out the property was sold at tax sale. At the time the taxes owed was approximately $40,000. The property sold at tax sale for $100,000. Thus, leaving $60,000 available for the note holder to claim.

I did not sell the note to Ben (who offered me $30k for it which again another red flag). I had my attorney file the proper paperwork to redeem the overage, which was recently granted.

So I don’t know who you are, but thank you, Ben

I would have eventually discovered this but not as early as I did.