checking taxes and violations

[Tyler Shagi]

I am looking into putting a home under contract and i needed some help on research. The owner is asking 15k for a home that has severe termite damage and needs a lot of work. I researched repair costs and received a quote from a GC for 16k to fix up the place and talked him down to 12k. My issue with the property is that I have heard stories about wholesalers not covering their end and taking the owners word that he doesnt owe anything in taxes and violations and once its under contract it turns out that they do. I was wondering how I could just double check that a property doesnt have any backed taxes or violations on it?

[Ryan Thomas]

Learn how to do title searches yourself, it will be beneficial if you know how to read all these documents and know what to look for.

In my area, you have to go to the County Clerks office (some areas you can do it online), but once there, you can check taxes (what they owe, where the bill is sent, when and who made the last payment), mortgages (what did they tell you they owe? does the amount and dates make sense with what you were told), deeds (who actually has the right to sell), Lis Pendens (are they paying their mortgage), Liens (who needs to get paid off in order to sell), Judgments (are/have they been involved in any lawsuits), Court Minutes (divorce?), Surrogates (did they inherit the house? are the people listed on the deed alive?), etc... This might be a good thing to do before making an offer, that way you know EXACTLY what the situation is, and you can be sure you know who has the right to sell the house. Also, it doesn't take long to search all these things. Maybe 10 minutes once you are there.

People will lie, or not know the whole truth, so the more informatiuon you have, the more professional you look, and the better position you have when negotiating.