Bought my first 2 tax liens

[Lucy Rowens]

Ok, I finally scraped up enough dough (and nerve) to buy the above and want to know if I can do anything with them other than wait till the redemption period is up in 2015? Thanks

[Bernard B.]

I hate to sound negative, but here it goes.. I bought about 8 tax liens on properties in Huntsville, AL. ( not far from Grant, AL. ). If you buy the tax liens for the 12% interest, that is fine. With that said, remember what Ann B. and Jerry K. posted, you are not the owner of that property for the entire 3 year redemption period. When I bought my tax liens, I made sure that they all had houses on the land, to make it worth my efforts. Some of these houses already had people living in them, did I try to collect rent NO! First, because I did not have a lease with them, second if I made them sign a lease and collected rent and later the tax lien was redeemed, I would be responsible for evicting them. In my situation( for the tax liens), I was responsible for keeping the grass cut to a reasonable level and I had to pay property taxes at the end of the year, if the tax liens had not been redeemed yet. All of my tax liens were redeemed between 6 months to 12 months. Now, you can see the problem with trying to collect rent :).
My advice on your tax liens ( for what it's worth) would be to collect the 12% interest as long as you can, keep the grass reasonable cut, pay the property taxes, don't do any major improvements to the house or property. Maybe, if you are lucky, after three years you can foreclose on the house/land and be the owner. I am not a lawyer, I just giving my opinion. Sorry for the long novel..