Taylor, you're correct. If someone lives there, it's not abandoned and will require the full 180 day redemption period.
I've had a few requests to follow up on this post. I've learned a lot in the past couple weeks so I'll try to pass that knowledge on to you.
Normally you would do all the due diligence BEFORE buying a property at auction but obviously the risk was small for me so I had the liberty of doing it afterward. Here is a step by step of what I did. If you're going to pay a significant amount for the property you buy at sheriff sale, might I suggest moving the purchase of the property to the last step :)
Bought property for $1
Called county tax assessor and found out back taxes owed = $2300
Called Register of Deeds to see if any other liens were on the property: there were none. The mortgage that was vacated was originally $130k (curious because the property isn't worth half that)
Called city to see if there were any open code violations: there were none. There were some in the past but they've all been brought up to code
Went to the clerk of courts and did a civil judgement search on the defendants to see if any judgments were attached to the property: there were none. (the cost of this was $20 per background check)
I could have paid a title company to do a more thorough search ($159) to see if there are any IRS tax liens (register of deeds would not catch that) but I feel comfortable moving forward for now.
Filed certificate of sale
Insured property
I'm a little unsure what I'm going to do next. I'm going to go knock on the door in the next week to find out the story of the occupants and go from there. (If I were to buy another foreclosure, I'd probably reach out to the owner prior and I would only buy if the property was unoccupied)
Can anyone think of anything I missed? Hope this helps!
