All Forum Posts by: Jerry K.

I use Mark Manoil out of Phoenix. He wrote a book on Arizona tax lien investing and has been specialist in tax lien foreclosures for a couple decades. I had a couple liens that also were within weeks of foreclosing and the county originally told him they were beyond the 10 year expiration and all the tax lien for the parcels were expired (even the ones less than 10 years old). If you hold all the liens and the oldest is more than 10 years old, the county can cancel all subsequent liens and you lose all your money you have paid in over the years. Mark informed them the Notice of Foreclosure was sent before the expiration and that state law counts that as beginning the foreclosure process. I ended up with 3 of 4 parcels through those foreclosures (the last one had the owner redeem before the foreclosure and I earned 16% on my money for the full 10 years).

In AZ you can go to the tax lien auction website and view the previous years auction results online or download in a CSV file.

Quote from @Abdenour Achab:

I own two tax lien certificates in an Arizona county for which the three year redemption period will end in February 2024. My plan is the following:

1) Send the the 30 day Notice to Foreclose on my own.

2) Try to locate and contact the owners on my own to remind them to redeem the property or, in the alternative, deed it to me for dirt cheap, subject to the tax lien.

3) If either property remains unredeemed and not deeded to me after some TBD date in the first half of 2024, ask my lawyer to start the foreclosure on it.

What happens if I send the 30 day Notices on January 1, 2024, notifying them of my intent to start foreclosure "on or after March 1, 2024"? Would that enable my lawyer to start the foreclosure process, if need be, any time between March 1, 2024 and July 1, 2024? Or does the 30 day notice need to be sent AFTER the expiration of the redemption period in order to be effective?

Abdenour, Good to see you're still investing in liens.

If this will be your first foreclosing of liens in AZ, I suggest using your attorney to do the 30 Day Notice of Foreclosure, but ask them what the process is so you know everything they do. You have to make sure you not only send it to the owner listed on the deed, but you have to send it to all the lien holders on the parcel. There could be HOA liens (even if just a vacant lot) any mechanic liens, city liens, etc. If the owner is deceased, you have to make sure the estate is notified. Maybe there is a line of credit where the parcel is held as collateral with a lien on the property.

Even if it is only the owner listed, you have to make sure you have the correct address. Registered mail is good so that you can prove they received it or that they were no longer at the address listed. You have to make sure you have the letter worded correctly. A judge may throw out your letters if they are not worded correctly or if you did not make a reasonable attempt to locate the owner and lien holders.

It may make sense to pay the extra $75 bucks or so to have the attorney do the letter. That is one of the only fees you will not get reimbursed for if the owner pays before the 30 days is up, but for a first foreclosure, it is worth the cost. Also, ask your attorney if they will handle the case if you do the 30 Day Notice yourself. Some may balk because they don't know if you did everything correctly. You have a decent amount of money tied up if you paid the taxes for 3 years (technically 4 since you can't foreclose until the end of the third year and another year will be due) - and you don't want to mess up the foreclosure by not doing the 30 Day Notice correctly.

Quote from @Ned Carey:

@Francisco Milan you buy them from the county wher the property is located.  Check the county websited. Someof the arizona counties use RealAuction.com as there official seller. 

@Jerry K. may have more details

Ned is correct. Contact the county treasurer. Most in AZ are online, but a few still do in person live auctions.

Quote from @Abdenour Achab:

Thanks @Jerry K. for chiming in with your experience.

>  If the owners did pay after that, they had to pay attorney fees for the foreclosure up to that point.

Has your attorney, which, by the way, I believe is the same as mine, told you what happens if the property owner(s) pay the back taxes, interest, and $25 redemption fee to the county treasurer, but don't send him any money?

Mine told me that when property owner(s) ask him what they need to do to keep their property, he tells them to send a check of X dollars amount to the county treasurer, and another check of Y dollars amount to him. And that they generally do that.

But, most likely after I asked (as you can tell from my posts here, I tend to ask too many questions), if all they do is send a check of X dollars amount to the county treasurer, and nothing to him, then the tax lien foreclosure still has to stop. He then asks the court to grant his client a judgment for the legal fees, and records a lien against the property with the county to secure that judgment. And that generally then, his clients just sit idle and wait for the property to sell.

I've had only one owner redeem after the foreclosure started and I received all my money - principle, interest and attorney fees back right away. Not sure what happens if they don't pay the attorney fees right away.

Quote from @Ned Carey:

@Abdenour Achab thanks for your response it clears up a few things. 
    "Now that you said it, I am leaning more towards it. But not before I skip trace,"

Back to the statutes, the law can be VERY technical. If you do a skip trace and send the mail to where they actually live but the statute says to mail to the address of record, your natice might not be considered valid. Of course the way to cover your rear end is to send notices to everywhere you can find but if you are using a process server that can add up. 

Keep in mind that a process server will have access to much better ski trace tool that you do. That is part of their job.  Good luck.

@Jerry K. any comment?  Jerry is the resident AZ expert here. Lok up his blog her on BP for great info on AZ tax liens. 

All answers and Abdenour's approach seem good. My attorney sent out four 30-day notices to foreclose in AZ a few years ago. One owner paid so I was only out the cost of the 30 Day notice (less than $75). Only when the others did not redeem after 30 days passed, did my attorney ask for a retainer to start the foreclosure suits. If the owners did pay after that, they had to pay attorney fees for the foreclosure up to that point. So for me, paying the attorney to do the 30 Day notice to make sure it was done correctly, was worth the cost if owner redeemed in the 30 Day period.

Paul I'll send you a private message with a resource for lease negotiation.

Thanks for tagging me @Ned Carey. @Alex Stepanov I use Mark Manoil in Phoenix of Manoil Kime 602-490-8503. Mark has a depth of knowledge in tax lien cases. I used Mark's firm a couple of years ago on 4 tax lien foreclosures. He was able to correct the county on one part of the law when they originally questioned the dates. I ended up with 3 of the parcels (one owner paid before the foreclosure and they had to pay my attorney fees along with the principle and interest on the lien).

A major reason I chose Mark was that his foreclosures are considered very thorough and there are title companies that will offer title insurance right away on tax lien foreclosures that he handles. I was able to sell a vacant parcel just a few months after I acquired title and had no issues selling it with title insurance. Many title companies will shy away from a tax lien foreclosure for several years. You may be able to find a less expensive foreclosure attorney, but I had a great experience with Manoil  - especially when I went to sell a parcel right away.

Mark wrote a book about Arizona tax liens (out of print now) and my parcels were in Yavapai county. I would trust him with any Arizona county. I had one in Pinal county years ago that Mark handled. The owner of that parcel paid off just before the foreclosure was finalized and again, the owner had to pay all my attorney fees along with the principle and interest.

Sounds like a Florida tax certificate auction. Check the statutes as there can be a 5% minimum payment even if the winning rate is below 5%. Note if the winning bid is Zero percent (0%), then no 5% minimum payment is made - (from a Florida state website for the statures on tax certificate sales):

"197.472 (2)When a tax certificate is redeemed and the interest earned on the tax certificate is less than 5 percent of the face amount of the certificate, a mandatory minimum interest of an absolute 5 percent shall be levied upon the face value of the tax certificate. The person redeeming the tax certificate shall pay the interest rate due on the certificate or the 5 percent mandatory minimum interest, whichever is greater. This subsection applies to all county-held tax certificates and all individual tax certificates except those with an interest rate bid of zero percent."

Here is a link to the Florida state statutes that lays out the entire process. https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/...

The media company may own the billboard structure. Check on that. They could removes the billboard if you break the lease. Frank Rolfe on Biggerpockets, used to run a billboard company. He sold it years ago, but still operates a website with a forum and resources for operating billboards. https://www.obuniversity.com/i... No recommendation implied, I just use it when I have billboard questions. I invest in tax liens and sometimes there are billboards on the parcel.

I bought a PDF he had (not sure if he still offers it on the website) on ground lease negotiation. He recommends a shorter lease (5-10 years) with a slowly increasing percentage for you, the land owner. 15% - 20% or more of the billboard rental. Lots of older leases are for very small fixed payments, but the bigger companies will agree to percentage of face rental for a good location - according to Frank. Note that billboard leases are made in 4 week increments - so there are 13 payments a year not 12.He talks about minimum payments when there is no advertising on the board, insurance, etc.