All Forum Posts by: Jessie Martin

I put in an offer on a short sale property in March 2013. The offer was accepted by the owner, contract signed with a settlement date of May 30, 2013, negotiator was assigned, and short sale was approved by the bank with the bank accepting our offer. By the time we got the approval/acceptance from the bank it was already the end of May so we signed an extention that gave a settlement date on or before August 1. The owner signed, and it was sent on to the bank. We soon discovered that there were multiple liens on the property which had all been satisfied, but it took some time to get proof of a clear title because one of the liens was an IRS lien. We have a clear title now, financing in place, and a settlement set for July 29th. Yesterday we heard from the bank that they plan on selling the loan to another bank on August 1. My question is whether they will be able to refuse to do the short sale that they already agreed to. Will they be able to just change their minds and sell the loan after we have paid a title company, lawyers, and appriasers to get ready for a settlement? Or if we are able to go forward and settle on July 29th before our extention runs out are they obligated to honor their aggreement? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Here is the information I have...forget all other banks mentioned as that info was given to us by the seller and may or may not be reliable.

Chain:
Deed of Trust 1st Mariner
04/99 for $333K
Liber 2683 Folio 415-420

Deed of Trust Greenpoint Mortgage Funding
03/03 for $419K
Liber 3642 Folio 252
Within this document it states:
Refinance Deed of Trust at Liber 2683 Folio 415 paid balance of loan $320528.66 leaving $0 balance

Certificate of Satisfaction Greenpoint Mortgage Funding
12/03
Satisfies Liber 3642 Folio 252

The only other document that we have is a letter from 1st Mariner stating that they sold the loan to Residential Funding Corporation.

This is all we were able to obtain from the county records. As far as I can surmise from the Title Insurance company, they are saying this is not enough proof that the 1st Mariner lien has been satisfied. I'm assuming this is because there is no Certificate of Satisfaction on record, only the Deed of Trust with Greenpoint stating that the loan with 1st Mariner was paid. They are telling us we need to get the seller to find a cancelled check proving payment of the 1st Mariner loan - which is never going to happen. Does anyone know of another way to prove that this loan has been paid?

We are in contact with the buyer but he has moved to Thailand and basically has no records for anything that he can put his hands on. The Chase mortgage for 800K is not a problem - that is the loan that will be paid when the sale goes through. We are stuck on the mortgage with 1st Mariner. This is what I found out this morning from accessing property records databases. The mortgage with 1st Mariner for $333K was sold to a company called Residential Funding in 2001. We spoke with Residential Funding and they said they needed a written request to search the records which we submitted twice and they haven't responded. I was able to find a settlement on the property in 2003 where Greenpoint Mortgage Funding paid off a note on the property but there is no record of who was paid off. We believe Greenpoint may have bought the loan from Residential Funding. Greenpoint is no longer around but from what we could determine their records are currently with Capital One. So...we have requests in with Chase, Residential Funding, and Capital One none of whom can give us an idea of when they will get back to us with any information. We have the lieber and folio number for the 1st Mariner lien and the title insurance company is insisting on proof that that lieber and folio is no longer an open lien. I am currently looking for other avenues to pursue to prove that the lien should be released. We did try looking up the previous title insurance company but they too have gone out of business and we have not been able to determine who has their records.

They said they can charge us an extra $30K to take liability for the lien with 1st Mariner. Obviously this is not the route we want to go because we are fairly certain that loan is paid off.

I am under contract on a short sale with Chase and have a very tight deadline for settlement mandated by the bank. My title insurance company did a search and came up with 6 open liens on the property, all but two I have been able to prove cleared. One is a tax lien which is in the process of being transferred. The other is a Deed of Trust with 1st Mariner dating back to '99 for 333K - what appears to be the purchase of the property. The current owner refinanced every couple of years and with banks being bought up like crazy the records are a mess. This is what we have determined...The current amount owed to Chase on the property is 800K and strangely they are listed as a second lien to 1st Mariner which makes me certain that there is an error in the records because Chase believes they are first lien-holders. Here is the trail as described by the current owner: 1st Mariner Lien for 333K for purchase of property in '99 was sold to Ocwen which was purchased by GMAC. Before GMAC went out of business the owner refinanced with Washington Mutual who merged with Chase. Unfortunately Chase has as of yet been unwilling to take the time to provide any documentation with regards to these issues (or so we are being told by the sellers REA). My title insurance company is unwilling to do anything further and is just trying to sell us an extra 30K policy to cover the issues.
My question is:
1) Can I contact Chase directly on this matter or will they only talk to the owner and the owners REA?
2) If I can't talk to Chase directly what direction should I go next as our deadline is less then 30 days away?
I know some of you are heros at clearing titles and any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, please let me know if anything needs clarification and I'll do my best...