Purchasing from multiple inheritors - addressing title claims

[Nick Brogren]

Hi y'all - I've got a question for ya!

I recently got a lead who claims that he is the last person on the deed to his grandmothers home. However, no paperwork was ever filed before or after her death (property is titled to the deceased "ET AL").

The gentleman believes that his grandmother wanted him to take care of the property (apparently he is the responsible one) but it doesn't look like anything was ever filed properly, so now we are two generations deep into inherited interests in the property... he estimates that there are about 20 relatives that could have a claim on the title. 

Have any of you dealt with something similar to this? 

I'm really curious if there is a viable option other than trying to locate all 20 parties and motivating them to sign quitclaim deeds. The other thought I had is to get the current "seller's" interest via contract and then attempt to transfer the title from Abstract to Torrens and hope that no one else steps up with a claim... but hope isn't a strategy so I hope someone has some great input!

Thanks in advance!

-Nick

[John Woodrich]

Your risk and numbers alone do not make this worth considering in my mind.  Your best case scenario is an after tax profit of probably $36,000  (130k - 50k reno - 5k legal fees - 5k prop tax - 10k closing and sales costs = $60k profit - 24k taxes (40% combined fed and MN) = 36k).

Your worse case scenario is that you lose $25k and waste a TON of time.  Actually it could get worse, you could acquire the property still lose money.

In any instance the numbers don't work for me, they never will.  I imagine the person living in the house will definitely be interested when they get mail saying the property is in the redemption period.