All Forum Posts by: Greg Ghunt

People are definitely investing into properties of that kind. My dad is a plumber & hvac and we looked at a job from a CA investor for a similar type of house, but in Cambridge. I think people do look to live in large rooms, victorian style homes that they divide among room mates, the houses that populate the popular rentable areas of Boston area. On the other hand, the plumbing in MOST old houses in Boston area is aging and often not replaced during major renovations. So inside the house looks solid, but behind the walls, you have corroding pipes waiting to collapse and/or flood. I would consult a plumber before making any investment on a house that is old. You can probably look at the plumbing permit history pulled online, and see all plumbing probably was not replaced. 

I lived in Central Sq for 5+ years. It's a unique place, and definitely people are looking to rent there due to proximity to MIT, Harvard, Bio copmanies, etc. But for quality of life - it is a loud, dense, busy, dirty, smelly place to live and the people are definitely very separated by class of society they are in. It is a WEIRD place I would say, not in a good way though for long term life in my opinion. There is also an uptick of random street crime from that Charter school? and just in general the affilitation of teenagers in schools there with gang activity in my opinion, evidenced by graffiti with strange names. 

I looked at the documents of the foreclosure as the seller's law firm sent them to me. They are completely illegal by Massachusetts law. I am 100% certain the foreclosure is void per Massachusetts court cases on record. I am being insured by the seller's title insurance company. House is vacant, previous owner is alive though and lives elsewhere. Do they usually reimburse for the cost of the house if the previous owner takes the title back through court? They are issuing me the standard ALTA title policy with what seems like a standard Section B exclusions page. 

 The policy forced me into arbitration and that gives me pause, because I would assume arbitration is biased toward the insurer, otherwise, the insurer would not select them. 

I recently found a very good foreclosure on Homepath.com, submitted an offer which was accepted, did home inspection, and then found out that no title insurance company is willing to insure this property because all foreclosures in Massachusetts are pretty much void because they did not comply with the correct notices for one reason or another, and also foreclosing banks often did not even have the papers showing they have the right to foreclose in the first place (they lied about it in court to get through this routinely, but eventually judges stopped letting them do this). I am wondering if anybody has bought a Fannie Mae Homepath foreclosure. According to lawyers I've consulted, the previous homeowner has a right to get his title back, in Massachusetts, for three years after the foreclosure. The judge would literally transfer the title to the deed of the house back to him and I would be left trying to get reimbursement from the seller's title insurance company, which is saying it their underwriter has reviewed the case and does not believe the homeowner is likely to sue, and they are working to produce a commitment to issue title for me and the title policy after closing. Has anybody a) taken the risk and bought a property like this, b) had the previous get the title back in court from them and then were/weren't reimbursed by the title insurance company? 

Thanks

I was shown a house by a single realtor, one time it was a woman and the other time it was a man. While not completely without witnesses, they could have gotten attacked inside the house with me. This practice is NOT safe. That is why Open House days are probably safer as different people can come in and out - thus more witnesses. But if you want to get attacked by a stranger - have them be inside a house alone with you. They can attack and run. People get attacked on the street too, but this is at least more visually isolated. 

The plat is currently on file with the Registry of Deeds. It has 100+ lots on it, with a separate house on each 1-4 lots. I looked at the deed history of some of the neighbors. One, had a survey done and the next deed described the metes and bounds and not just the lots as the previous deed referred to. 

So you are saying I would have to check if the plat is legal? And having it be on file originally back in year 1916-1917 with the county would make it so? What if it was put on file with the Registry of Deeds at some later point? 

Or you mean that the company bought the land, surveyed it into lots, but never submitted the surveyed map with the 100+ lots to the county? 

Yes, the deed references a subdivision plat on a builder’s map that was held at the Assessor’s Office during the tax auction. 

My closing attorney emailed me this: “If the seller will pay for and provide buyer a clean owners policy without issue for the legal description or potential foreclosure problem; nothing needs to be done, so the Buyer would not have grounds to insist on a survey being performed.

This would be fine if the buyer was paying cash and accepted this.

The problem is that there is a loan that we need a lender’s policy for and we would need them to issue. As a colleague of mine indicated, he has never seen it done before. I don’t see how we would get it accomplished either. We would need a title commitment from the sellers title company, we would need to collect the premium and send to them and they would have to issue the policy. Not sure if the lender would allow that either as we would not be able to issue a Closing Protection Letter.”

My impression is that the closing attorney represents his title company to only insure straight forward titles and not interesting making a somewhat complicated case qualify.

The builder’s map was held in the Assessor’s office only for the tax auction many years ago, so the deed does not refer to an Assessor’s Map which would be illegal, but rather to a normal map that was seized and auctioned off by the Assessor using the builder’s map and not the assessors map. 

My closing attorney wants to walk away from this Fannie Mae Foreclosure property, get my deposit back and forget it. Essentially, the deed does not describe the property boundaries, but rather refers to a lot number on a builder's map, held in the Assessor's Office at the time of the tax land auction. The map is now in Registry of Deeds and the deed has not been updated with the new location of the builder's map with property lot. My closing attorney has his own title company that he works with exclusively. He says this description makes it sound like the Assessor's Map is used as a description which is illegal and won't transfer ownership. Here is what the closing attorney wrote me, "Our title exam revealed there are serious title issues with this property. I had our title insurance company take a second look and they confirmed the property is not insurable..This could potentially be cleared through the land court, but it would be a very lengthy and costly process..Our office requested that seller have a land survey performed that would result in the language in the deed being formalized and corrected so you would not run into any issues in the future.The seller is not willing to do this because the seller's title insurance company (which is one that we do not use) is stating that they will issue clean title insurance policies to you. You can choose to purchase the property, however our office cannot be involved as the closing attorney because we are not comfortable with the title on this property as it currently stands. I am also not sure if your lender will accept the title insurance policies issued through the seller and not through their closing attorney office. If you are still planning to pursue purchasing this property, then that question would need to be presented to the lender. We are required to follow the direction of our title insurance companies and the way the deed is written is very much out of the ordinary. There is also a potential issue with the foreclosure that we did not have a chance to thoroughly explore yet because we could not get beyond this first obstacle. I will also be letting your mortgage originator know that our office cannot serve as the closing attorney on this property given the state of the title.."

So if I switch to a different title company that agrees to insure this title, when I try to sell the house, the buyer may be denied title insurance and back out. Do I live with this and try to correct this through a "quiet title" motion or some deed correction on my own cost which might be $5,000+ and take more than six months? I would not want to live with anxiety of not having my property boundaries written into the deed, although that is possibly correctable by surveying the lot it refers to, and most importantly having problems selling and refinancing.