All Forum Posts by: Jen Salemi

Ahhh.  Asset Management Company for BoA.  That makes much more sense.  Ok.  Once I close I'll take the issue up with my lawyer and go through the legal steps of covering my bum.  Thank you everyone for your help.

It is a 5,000 sqft house FILLED with furniture and other household items, tractors, cars etc.  Plus multiple barns filled with (likely) thousands of dollars of tack.  There is definitely stuff of material value.  In fact, it sounds like there is multiple houses worth of stuff IN IT, like they consolidated their furniture at one point as all of their other properties were going under foreclosure.  Very strange.  So, I guess if I have to store it, it will have to be done on site due to the expense of moving it out (was planning on a quick estate sale after the trashout...then the demo).  I'll look into the local rules for personal property.  Thank you for that.  

I feel like I am in a grey area. It is an REO property, you are correct. And when I google REO evictions, the results seem focused on tenants (like in a rental unit situation). This is not the case here. And REO property filled with stuff that belonged to the owner...who isn't living there (so didn't "graduate" to being a tenant by default). Anyone else have this kind of experience?

Ron, thank you for taking the time to comment.  When my lawyer said that she doubted there would be a closing if the bank didn't successfully evict, I thought she was being a bit naive, but then again, I am cynical by nature.  I also forgot to mention, Auction.com listed this is "bank owned" and "owner occupied".  

I am confused for sure.  I think I am trying too hard to fill in the blanks.  The only thing I really know, for sure, is that Bank of America foreclosed successfully, but I was told an investment firm in Texas is actually selling the property.  My title search documents pass the ownership from the "original owner" to Bank of America, to me.  Nothing about this investor.  Maybe I am making too much out of it.  

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens after closing.  Seems weird to have to evict someone who isn't living on the property (and hasn't been at least for months).  Frankly, I would not have even thought twice about knocking the house down post-closing if it hadn't been the tremendous amount of STUFF in the house.  That gave me pause.  All of the google searching seemed relevant to what happens when you buy a foreclosed property that someone is living in.  And what to do with their stuff.  There seemed to be a gap when it came to properties that no one was living in, but there was a lot of stuff left behind.  

To Ron S.  I guess that is where I am getting confused.  What is the definition of "occupied".  No power, no water, locks changed, no evidence of anyone being there for months.  But the house is full of stuff.  

Yes, I am using a closing attorney.  She isn't involved in the eviction, as the investor's lawyers and the realtor were "handling it".  In fact, when I brought it up a month or so ago, she said her opinion was that there was no way the investors would close if the previous owner hadn't officially been evicted.

 If in fact, I do need to be concerned about this eviction process, I think our lawyer can't even get involved until after the closing (I can't evict anyone (if necessary) on a property that I don't officially own yet.)

My question is more about....is eviction even necessary?  No one living there.  Locks have been changed.  Mortgage company foreclosed successfully, sold note to another operation...and then I buy it.  The original owner is now twice removed.  Thoughts?

Hi. I recently won the auction.com auction for a property located in Vermont. Closing over the next few weeks. The property was once owned (obviously).... then successfully foreclosed upon by the mortgage company...and then that note was sold as a package to another round of investors, who listed it on auction.com as well as MLS. The realtor that is "working" for this last group of investors is my only point of contact, and the realtor is far from helpful. When I first inquired about the property he told me the bank has a budget to do a trash-out. And they were also in the process of evicting the former owner. I guess they had gone about it the wrong way the first time around, and were in the process of doing it correctly now. I bid on this house as-is, without having seen it.

Since then, I have been told by the realtor a series of confusing things.  Maybe confusing because this is my first time doing this kind of purchase, maybe intentionally confusing.  I have no idea.  At one point recently I was told that the Writ of Possession was available for pick up, and the realtor would hand-deliver it to the sheriff in this county, as well as the county in which the owner currently resides.  That would start the eviction process/clock.  

That story morphed the following week, and at this point I have no idea where we are with the eviction because the agent is no longer responding helpfully.  Other than telling me that the former owner (the person, not the bank) had not been served, yet.  They just want to close and get their commission.  

In the time between winning the bid and now, I was able to get a better visual of the property.  The house is a hoarder house.  A sort of "clean" hoarder house, but a hoarder house none-the-less.  Furniture and boxes piled up 4' high, narrow aisles through each of the rooms that you can walk through, just barely.  Filled to the max.  Dead mice in the bathtubs, mouse crap everywhere.  In fact, it sort of looks like a high-end antique store that was vandalized by an angry raccoon who liked decorating the piles with ladies shoes.  It is truly bizarre.   

The water is turned off, the heat is turned off, there is recent evidence of frozen pipes, (icicles from the ceiling) etc etc.  There is no way anyone is living in that house.  And in fact, due to the nature of the freezy VT climate, no indication that anyone has even walked down the driveway for months.  And a few weeks ago the realtor changed all the exterior locks so no one can get in.

My questions are:  If no one is living there, and the bank successfully foreclosed (therefore the bank is the former owner) and then the bank sold the note to another set of investors....and the realtor locked everyone out...   do I even need to pick up the eviction ball?  I will mention that the first order of business for me is completely demolishing the place and I would like to get going on that before the **** roaches emerge and the raccoons start decorating again.

Thanks!  

No, knowing the note would not make me change my offer.  But it might make me decide to not put an offer on the house and waste everyone's time.  Like someone up above said, if they owe 2M on the house, and aren't in dire straights, they probably are unlikely to want to bring cash to closing.  They might let it languish on the market for a few more years, hoping it will catch up to their note.   

Their original asking price, 3.5 years ago, was 3.3M.  Then it dropped in increments to 2.5M (6 months ago), where it sits right now.  You could argue from this that they clearly have no idea of the market value of their house.  

To your point, is there value in knowing if other offers have been received/rejected versus knowing that no offers have been received?  From what you are saying, that knowledge of "no received offers" would only be useful to me in "confirming" that their opinion of the market value is incorrect.  

However, if they have received/rejected an offer(s), that might tell me something different...  that the listing price is in "swinging" range of other interested buyers, but perhaps these folks "draw the line in the sand", so to speak.  

I'm not sure how that knowledge would help me.  Somehow I think it should, but I can't get there from here.  

Re the cover letter.  Last year the sellers wrote a "meet the buyers" letter.  It explained what they loved so much about the house, what they've changed over the years, how their grandkids loved it, but they are getting old, and have health issues, and decided to downgrade to a condo.  The letter rang of solid-emotion...   which was why I was intrigued by the comment up above about the cover letter.  My gut-feeling is that they are correct and these sellers are "emotional".  So I thought they might respond favorably to someone who was just as emotional about the place.  But I see your point about the handshake and stab in the back....it could go either way.  But I'm trying to play the odds here.

(I've been having this conversation for 3 months now to the shower head...so it is nice to be able to get my thoughts out to experienced realtors as a sounding board).   

Should I write a cover letter making myself "come alive" to them?  Or is that hokey?

You are right, I am definitely trying to get in their head, which is about as reliable as fortune telling.  But that said, you brought up a good point.  I should find out if there is a note on the residence.  Is that something they would normally divulge?  

Thank you everyone for the advice.  

Is there anything I can ask the seller's agent that would help me?  FYI:  asking if they have received any offers (and for how much and why did they turn them down).  Knowledge is power, and I want to be as prepared as I can be.  What should I know beforehand?