Texas Tax Lien or tax deed info help wanted

[Cortney Arenstein]

Who here is in Texas and playing the "pay delinquent property taxes and then wait for the interest" game? I have had my eye on a distressed property (boarded up apartments) for a while, and the owner is in distress too (partner is being federally indicted for fraud, they are going through a messy and expensive divorce, this asset was recently moved from an LLC into a trust--if I had to guess there is some chicanery afoot). Well the property taxes are now late and unpaid and as far as I can tell, if I pay this $5k, I can expect to either 1) get paid back when the owner redeems the property--but with interest or 2) get the deed if she never redeems it.

What I am NOT sure of is A) the time frame of this process--I think it is 180 days +? and B) the actual percentage return I could expect if she redeems it. 

Also, the IDEAL end game is to buy the property. She tried to sell it last year for $250k (bought it in 2016 for $100k) and then withdrew it from the MLS. I can make the numbers squeak by at $250k but would prefer to get it at $125-150K and have some comps to support THAT price. Seems like paying her taxes might be seen as an aggressive and hostile move and then she might not be willing to discuss selling at a reasonable price...

Google is SOMEWHAT helpful but all the "experts" are selling something. ANyone have direct experience here with this?

[Cortney Arenstein]

@Gabriel Elias nope this is exactly wrong. Eeek! But I was definitely thinking that was close to what would happen. It wasn’t. As the first comment states, it doesn’t work that way. (And the way Kyle phrased it helped me Google better so I was able to find the info I was missing) she has to not pay for a long time before the taxing authority puts a lien on her property. Then once there is a tax lien placed on the property by the tax authority, if the owner still doesn’t pay, THEN there is an auction. And the owner has plenty of advanced warning about the auction. And everyone on the mailing list or watching the property lists knows about the auctions and can show up to bid. (After registering as a bidder)

And a lot of these get cancelled at the last minute when the owner finally begs borrows or steals the owed amount. There are even attorneys out there advertising to “help you deal with tax liens on your property.”

I am actually scheduled to go to a tax lien bootcamp later this month (more education is needed on my part for sure!) but I got a little excited when I saw she hadn’t paid her taxes yet—thus my reaching out here when I couldn’t find the exact information I was looking for.

Luckily Kyle saved me from a $5k mistake that would have stemmed from my incomplete understanding of the process. Thank god for this forum because I had literally been googling for two hours trying to figure out how this stuff ACTUALLY works to no avail.