All Forum Posts by: David Sicherman

@William Murrell Yes, however many investors pay for just a lien search not a full title search before signing a contract as companies that do initial lien searches are much cheaper than running a full title search and finding out there's an issue when you are already at or near closing date.

@Steve Babiak One can only find liens if they are recorded in official records, there's no lien searches that include calling municipalities, hence why this is a separate service that takes much longer and a municipal search cost more than an O & E report.  Technically it's not even a "lien" until it is filed with the county, so I stand behind the fact that we will find all liens in official record.  Basically what you are dealing with unfiled municipality stuff are unpaid utility bills that haven't become liens yet, zoning violations as 99% of the time even the special assessments are filed in a timely manner with official records.

Short of doing a full title search which will run you $100's or doing an O & E and a muni search which will run you over $100 too, there's no way to take the risk out of the biz, and if you are doing 100's of searches a month like many of our clients, anything more than an O & E search isn't cost feasible, and everything other than utility bills can be negotiated for pennies on the dollar if you purchase the property.

Do a lien search first!

Having a hot lead presented with VM when they call sucks. Answer it yourself or use a service or you will be throwing your marketing money and potential deals out the window. When you call a company wanting to engage with their service and get a voicemail, let alone during biz hours, it's a big turnoff no?

LP is just the notice of a lawsuit. If the bank approved the house to be a short sale they are approving their lien to be satisfied and oddly enough usually the same bank has a foreclosure dept working to foreclose. So you can either get it on the short sale or buy it if it hits the county auction. 

In short as long as the bank that has the LP is the one that approved the short sale and it's the superior lien you are not responsible for whatever the LP is for. 

not sure about Indiana but senior lien holder in Florida auction wipe out junior liens as long as they were noticed correctly.  Should be part of you due diligence before you bid. 

absolutely, if they aren't recorded you can't find them, municipal liens can be tracked down by doing a municipal lien search which is completely different service and can be way more expensive than a regular lien search.  There are services for municipal searches and they run about $75 and up. Most investors do not do these searches because they take way longer than a regulate title search, cost more, are rarer and are easily negotiated down with the municipality in most cases of these violations. 

the phrase "probably needs $5k worth of work" is a red flag.  That translates to me as "definitely needs $10k and probably more. 

Florida is great, it's all online, just have to do your lien searches diligently!

I am the managing partner at a title company.

You 100% need to have an abstractor do your searches especially anywhere in Florida, let alone in the Broward/Miami/Palm beach area. There is so much "shenanigans" going on with these properties that are at the auctions, I see it daily from errors that would land you in court to straight up fraud. My main team of REO & tax specialists all have 20 years+ experience in South Florida, you wouldn't want to do this stuff yourself.