All Forum Posts by: Davido Davido

Ask the Post Office for the information given by the person who signed up for the P. O. Box.  It usually includes their physical address and the information written on the application form by the P.O. Box rented is often available for the asking. 

@Account Closed, Adverse Possession can apply to any property that meets the legal definition of "abandoned".   Basically the owner has explicitly stated he/she is abandoning the property or his/her intent to abandon is implicit in their actions (not using it for long periods, not paying the debt on the property, not maintaining the property, not paying the taxes, not responding to any communications at their last known address.  Adverse Possession is a difficult and ultimately an expensive method of acquiring title.  Better, to start by finding and contacting the owner.  Check to see who is paying the property tax.  Then make an offer to buy the property for a price below what you can sell it at.   If you don't have the money to complete the purchase, bring in a partner who does and let him/her have most of profit.  Alternatively, get a title report on the property to see how much debt is on the property.  If there is nonperforming debt, (mortgages or liens that are not being paid) attempt to buy an assignment of the nonperforming debt for a fraction of what is owed,  then foreclose your new mortgage or lien. 

@Jeffrey H. "

You ask, "are there any other "gotcha's" I'm not considering?"  Consider this.  Most people who become aware of an attempt by you to obtain a property through the laws of Adverse Possession will wrongly think and insist that you are immorally trying to obtain something for nothing.  The truth is that adverse possession is one of the very hardest and longest methods to obtain title to real estate.   If you eventually succeed in obtaining title, you will have obtained title the hard way.

Also most people who become aware of your efforts to obtain title via Adverse Possession will wrongly assume that you attempting to get valuable real estate to the harm of the legitimate owner.   Actually you would be preserving the interest of the title owner (or of the owner's heirs), for many years beyond what the county would normally allow.  As you have noted, the county would likely sell out the owner's interest at a tax foreclosure auction in just 12 to 24 months.   As @Jibran Najmicorrectly noted, by attempting an Adverse Possession you are actually preserving the owner or heirs interests for many years beyond that.  The owner can show up at any time during the period of adverse possession and reclaim his property.   Thus, all efforts you make to preserve the property also benefit the title owner.  Further, if the owner or heirs show up, you won't be reimbursed for any improvements you make, even though improvements are typically of benefit to the titled owner.

While Jibran's advice to obtain an abstract of title and to then contact a real estate attorney for advice on how to provide "Constructive Notice"  are good, consider carefully to his notion that filing a quit claim deed will quiet the title.   A quit claim deed can help you to obtain and or quiet the title only if it is granted by the owner of record.  There are almost always very real benefits to contacting the owner on title, and or the owner's heirs.  In my opinion that is the first step you should take in any adverse possession play.

I have found that very often the owner has indeed intentionally abandoned the property - usually due to other debts on the property or personal issues ranging from disease, to imprisonment to a change in the owner's mental or spiritual state.  And if you can not find the owner you should definitely proceed to at least know who the heir(s) are.   There are always heirs.  Be sure to check out this BP Post assuring that there are always heirs and that if you don't contact them, your competitor's might.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/136041-deceased-home-owner-property-with-squatter-living-in-it

Good luck.  If you proceed, be sure to post an update for the benefit of those on BP who have interest in similar properties.

@JD Martin "Clean and guaranteed title is the bedrock of real estate investing." = Interesting perspective.   Profit is the bedrock upon which I seek to build a real estate investing business, -and a clean title is merely one of the important tools used to build profit.  However, there are ways to work around any tool that is missing.  Not faulting you or @Nick Brogren for walking away from any deal that doesn't suit you.  Still, clouded title situations often make excellent cash flow opportunities as rentals that can be held for the number of years required to eventually obtain that clean and guaranteed title. 

The profit in properties which lack clear title, need not be dependent upon a quick flip. If the acquisition cost is low, (past due taxes, and the cost of a quit claim deed), the rental income alone can provide an excellent ROI in the short term (1 to 4 years while waiting for clear title). Then in the longer term, an eventual sale after clear title is obtained offers even better profit potential.

Nick, before walking away from the property, why not negotiate the price of a quit claim deed from both the resident relative and the gentleman who wants to sell?  Find out what it would take to acquire their interest.  Be certain to explain to the resident that the county will be foreclosing and he/she will then be forced to move.  Similarly, explain to the gentleman who wants to sell it, that without documentation regarding his claim on the property, his interest, if any, is not worth much.

Provided that you can negotiate an agreement from both relevant parties -to quit claim their interest in the property to you for a modest amount (a hundred to a thousand), then proceed with the title search to find out what liens there may be.  Most liens, other than mortgages, will be beyond Minnesota's six year statute of limitations anyway.  I doubt they will matter. 

http://marsomichelson.com/statute-of-limitations-old-debt/

If you like the title report, then you can proceed to acquire the quit claim deeds.  Once you have color of title from the quit claim deeds.  I'd pay the past due taxes, or maybe just enough of the property taxes to keep the property out of tax foreclosure, and meanwhile lease/rent the property back to the relative who is in residence so he/she doesn't need to move.  $500 a month in rent on the property would repay you for the cost of both quit claim deeds and the past due taxes in just about a year.  The property could then provide you with a modest cash flow for how ever many years it takes you to build a marketable title.  No need to put remodel $ into the property until your title issues are handled.  

No need to hire a law firm to find out if anyone will fight you for the property either.  You can file a "quiet title action" yourself and your title company will tell you who needs to be notified in order for them to insure the title.  If no one responds, then your request to quiet the title in your name will be granted. If a relative does respond, then you can negotiate with whoever responds, withdraw your Quiet Title Action, ( http://www.wikihow.com/Withdraw-a-Lawsuit ) or hire an Attorney at that point.  

The bottom line is that, provided you are patient and careful, clouded title properties can be turned into large profit.  And you'd be learning to master a nitch that your competitors tend to avoid. 

Hello @Nick Brogren, Yes, please do post again regarding your decision on the property. Of possible interest to you may be that your gentleman who believes that his grandmother wanted him to take care of the property can make a claim that he has color of title in many states. Meaning that even though his title to the property is incomplete or even nonexistent, there are facts upon which he believes he has title and upon which a court will hear his claim to title.  Meaning that even though he may not have valid title to the property, getting a deed from him can still be of some value as it gives you his color of title claim.  Such a color of title claim can give you an advantage over those who attempt to squat or claim adverse possession.

@Nick Brogren Hello Nick, in my experience it is unlikely that a previously uninterested heir would suddenly fight your acquisition of the property.   Based on only your description of, "a lead who claims that he is the last person on the deed to his grandmothers home", it appears that only one of the potential heirs currently has any expectations of ownership regarding this property.  With only one currently interested party, is it profitable for you to acquire a quit claim deed from that heir and then and proceed to gain clear title through a quiet the title action? 

If you think it is, I'd attempt to explain to the interested heir that without a will, or a deed in his name, or a completed probate, his alleged interest is not worth much, but if the property is considerably more valuable than what is owed on the taxes, I'd offer him something.  Your real estate attorney should be able to guide you on how to leverage a quit claim deed into an ownership interest that allows you to protect the funds you spend on back taxes from any other heirs who may later claim an interest.   If you later have to divide your interest in the property with one or more other heirs, all the funds you spend that are reasonably necessary to maintain and preserve the property should be reimbursable from the eventual sale of the estate.   A good real estate attorney can also show you how a quit claim deed from the current possessor of the property would give you at least "color of title" that allows you to legally create a lien on the property for the taxes you pay and other funds you pay to preserve (but not to improve) the property.  Non owner's can not seek court ordered repayment for improving another's property -even through honest mistake..

If the property has sufficient value, I'd recommend getting a quit claim deed, and use it to gain clear title.  Any other heirs who respond to a probate or quiet title action can be required to post a bond for an equal share of the property taxes and costs.   You can ask the court deduct a share of all expenses reasonably necessary to preserve the property -from all other claimants. A potential heir, who knows that they would be responsible to pay a few thousand just to acquire a partial interest in a property that they were not previously expecting to own, will have their enthusiasm for contesting your suit, considerably dampened. 

Yes, you would need to notify all heirs if you decided to probate the property and you would have to notify all owner's of record (and their descendants) to file a quiet title action. It would be your responsibility to notify all the owners.   And as @Account Closed mentioned, courts tend to require you to make considerable, real, & diligent efforts to identify and notify all parties with an interest in the property. 

The Minnesota Adverse possession period is 15 years plus it requires that you, and/or you and your predecessor in interest, (the person you get the quite claim deed from) paid the property taxes for that 15 year period.  How long has this person been in possession of the property and how long has he paid the taxes?  Good luck.

An idea that may help your new building to blend in with it's surroundings would be to put one full story below grade. That would result in a building that looked very much like every other home on the street.  Below grade housing can be done well if you provide attractive access (Conveniently placed snow and rain protected stairwells) and good natural light for the floor below grade.  I'm planning a similar project for WA State, - a 3 story Tri-plex, except that I intend to build in multifamily zoning.  For my application, the tri-plex will allow me to run 12 short term rental bedrooms with private baths in one building.  The building will be permitted and constructed as 3 separate residences but operated essentially as a small hotel.   The rooms can be rented as AirBnB rooms on easily obtained Bed and Breakfast licenses and built in a residential area, as opposed to constructing a more expensive hotel in a more expensive and difficult to find commercial zoning.

@Garrett Blanchard,  You might find this recent Craigslist add of interest.  Seems someone across the country from you had pretty much the same idea. This is in the town of Yelm, WA -population 7000.   Yelm is 60 miles S of Seattle, 20 miles from Tacoma, and about 20 miles from State Capital of Olympia WA.

https://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/prk/6101831144.html

Sorry.  Forgot the link.  Here it is:  http://www.ekmmetering.com/encompass

@Leonid Sapronov  Here is a link to the EKM Software Support page which discusses some of it's billing capabilities. Sorry, I do not use the EKM billing function directly and probably shouldn't comment on it from my vague memory of a service I haven't used.  Instead, for billing, my assistant copies the EKM csv data to an excel spreadsheet. We then send both a billing summary stating the Cubic Feet of gas used and the amount due, along with the full spreadsheet showing gas usage by the hour for each day of the month to each tenant.  That sounds a little complicated but it only takes about 5 minutes per tenant per month.  EKM and http://www.wattvision.com/ both provide an easier way to bill with EKM, but I've never used either EKM's free or Wattvision's nominal cost billing functions. 

We copy and paste data because we use two other sub meter providers to meter our electrical consumption.  The billing platforms between the three companies we use are not directly compatible.  All companies we use do provide real time metering though.  And they all provide downloadable files we can copy into our spreadsheet. We use EKM for metering water and gas and in two cases for metering total electrical power through a subpanel. However, using only EKM ($400/per metering system -Utility grade, accurate to 0.5%) was getting cost prohibitive in our application because we had over a half dozen electrical panels and subpanels to monitor as well as four different gas, and water lines to meter.  We settled on two EKM Omni meters to meter two small residence sub panels, along with two water, and two gas lines.  For the other electrical circuits that I wanted to meter and bill for we chose www.EnergyCurb.com .

The EnergyCurb system ($400 -near utility grade, accurate to +/- 1%) allows us to separately meter our choice of up to 18 electrical circuits from the two main breaker panels our property (our two panels sit side by side).  Our acreage has a single main residence, and 3 small residences all served by the two 200 Amp panels.  From the main house, multiple circuits feed sub panels for the smaller residences and outbuildings.  I installed Curb myself.  Three hours was suggested as the typical install time, but it took me 16 hours -largely because of the complication of our multiple panels and also because I redesigned the circuit transformer layout several times as I learned what was possible and was not.

We are also experimenting with www.Sense.com ($300).  We use Sense to identify and measure the energy consumption of individual appliances, lights, etc.  However, Sense is more for consumption information and education.  With only a couple exceptions we do not use Sense as a billing meter (lower accuracy). Our Sense unit was installed because it provides greater resolution than our Curb meter which measures entire individual circuits.  The Curb unit provides greater resolution than EKM which only meters all circuits in the entire panel or subpanel.

However, Sense requires patience.  The residents (or property owner) need to actively teach, and the Sense processor needs to learn to identify the individual appliances, lights, fans -electrical loads.  Sense uses a machine learning algorithm.  It requires you to turn on what you want to meter and then you name that load for Sense and give the Sense processor time to identify, learn and measure the electrical signature of the item you've named.  It requires time and effort, but provides great info.

For real time gas monitoring choices are indeed limited.  However, for electrical metering there are multiple companies, 

https://engage.efergy.com,  http://www.theenergydetective.com/home More can be found at, www.powermeterstore.com