Purchasing a property cash with a cloud on title advice

[Michael Clark]

Hello all,

To give a brief backstory- My cousins aunt had just passed away (a few months ago) and she lived in a house with her husband who was the owner, he had passed away about 20 years ago but never created an estate and never had any children. It was presumed ownership was passed to his wife who had lived there but when boiled down legally, his siblings and their heirs are also entitled to a fraction. So my cousin is now executor of the estate of his aunt but only owns 1/8, all of the other 7/8 owners are deceased as well as some of their children. So there are now 20+ people to connect with in order to get a clean marketable title, (none of these existing family members have any idea of the property even existing). So I contacted an attorney who said we can do a quiet title but since there are so many people geographically displaced I'd have to post about it in the national newspaper and all in all the cost would be roughly $40,000 just to get marketable title. I can however purchase the house cash for $30,000 without having any title work but of course take the risk on of someone potentially claiming their stake (the odds of this seem very low). I'd appreciate any advice, thanks in advance.