All Forum Posts by: Rachel Zhang

Hello, 

We bought a property in CA at a trustee sale with an existing senior lien under the previous owner's name. Now my title company and are having difficulty in obtaining payoff amount. By standard, the serve company requires the lien holder's SS /loan # or authorization to release payofd. Even through I faxed over the trustee's deed upon sale, the reps won't understand or do not care, always give me the standard response. Shall I try different title company or have difficult strategy? By law, when i am on title, I am responsible for the lien, which should serves as an authorization. Right? are there any specific language in the mortgage or the law code to indicate such? The lien is delinquent, and I am offering to pay it off. where wont' they give to me? Talking to the rep at the serve company is like talking to a wall. They are not educated or do not care to be educated.  Thanks for your response.  Rachel

in the case of properties purchased at trustee sale, the new owner has no contact with previous owner holding the lien, how to get the payoff? I am in such situation. I could order the previous owner's SS# . how to proceed? 

Thanks for your feedback. We can all learn from each other.

When the tenants can not pay the full amount of rent because of unemployment, and indicate that they can pay partial and will come up with the rest when they get new job, what do you do? Of course I prefer them to break the lease and leave. Would you decline the partial rent and start eviction immediately by starting with the 3 day pay rent or quit? What I found is that they promised to pay late fees if you accept the partial rent. Then next month, they just want to pay the rest of balance and not the late fees.. and then they changed their promises as fast as you can keep track of them. When they started the lease, they appeared to be reasonable, decent human beings.... and it puzzled me that they could change to be different people. The only reason that I accepted partial payment is that I thought they were decent people having temporary difficulties.

Please experienced landlords, De-mistify the human nature of the problem tenant. How to decide when to work with them, when not to? Or always go by the set procedures. I believe that some landlords decide to not evict right away, is also due to the paper work and time and money required to file eviction. What's your comment or experience?

The smartmove.com keeps the SS#, but they will not disclose to you when you request it. So it is misleading to landlords that smartmove.com markets this as a winning feature. As landlord, you need to collect the SS# on your applications. Smartmove.com's credit score always come out higher than if you run the reports from other resources. That means that they probably run a generic report without looking into details. Several of my tenants were surprised that they got better scores from this website.

Please Google this subjects and learn services from other service providers. I want to report this problem so that other landlords will NOT repeat the same mistakes. .... All products appear fine until there are issues coming up, then you will find the holes and it is late and they will not help to solve it.

As an individual landlord, you need to use the same screen criteria as the professional property management company, ask them for SS#, drive license, bank deposits, pay-stubs.. the more strict that you are upfront, the less problems you will have later on. Please be professional and firm on rental requirements. Some tenants like to rent from individual landlord, because they know that individual landlords are flexible on requests and not always demand on late fees etc. and Tenants take it not as a sign of consideration, but a sign of weakness.

I have been using the https://biggerpockets.mysmartmove.com for several years. and I found that even the smartmove.com claims that benefit is that tenants can get get their credit reports generated without giving out their social security numbers, meaning their identify is protected.

In realty, this product is only good for the tenants, but a disaster for landlords. Because when tenants do not pay rent, landlord can NOT report them to the credit bureaus due to lack of SS#. and the credit score comes out higher than if you get from other services. So my previous tenants were pleasant surprised that they got better credit scores.

In summary to landlords, my recommendation based on real life experience:

1.DO not use smartmove.com to screen tenants...There are better softwares.

2. DO get tenants' SS. Period.

Rachel Zhang

Thanks you all! You are so awesome. It is the stressful time that reminds me how valuable our community is. and you are all experienced investors. Thanks for your time reaching out to me. I will definitely do the same in the future.

I have used 2 title companies. north American title and old republic. As I said, the tile report is clean, even there is a NOS recorded, the title did not include it, since it should be wiped out. Since my agent brought it several times to their attention..(agents do not understand what a title insurance is for...and want to protect themselves). I spoke with the under-writer, and they understood it is wiped out, BUT won't insure it. They are conservative, won't insure something outstanding. It is the seller's job to straighten things up....In one way, I understand their position. Imagine the transaction is completed, and the bank proceeds with the sale, and a new owner shows up at the property...and then it is the title company's job to clean up the confusion. From this , I get a good sense of reality, regardless you are right or wrong

Few of the suggestions are to switch title company:
when I switch to a new title company, do I have obligation to inform them the whole story? They can look into all this since the NOS is a recorded document.. If I tell them upfront, I will know for sure whether it is a go or not..if I do not tell them, 7 days later, I may run into the same problem. I am thinking of renting, and wait out the mess while collecting rent to pay for the first mortgage..the market value is going up a lot....

Thanks for all your response and help.
The property is in CA.
As for title report, they all came clean, SINCE THE JUNIOR LIEN IS WIPED OUT BY CALIFORNIA LAW. But my agent sent them the copy of notice of trustee sale and demand them to insure the NOS is cancelled ...and then it brings them the attention not to issue title insurance until all is settled.

I bought a property at a trustee sale when the 2nd lien was auctioned. I know that I am subject to the 1st and the 3rd is wiped pout.One month later after a rehab and property was in contract with a new buyer via a MLS listing, the 3rd lien holder (a bank) filed Notice of trustee sale. After I notified the trustee and the bank, one month later, the bank informed me that they are just aware of the issue and are looking into it..another month passed, they are still looking into it...meanwhile I am paying the mortgage for the first and the house is sitting pretty and empty. The buyer probably will go away since he can't get a clear title and title company conforms with me it is an error on the bank's side, but they won't issue title until it is resolved...as for me, I do not understand why it takes 2 months to yet figure out the positions of senior and junior liens...by the recorded date, unless the bank did something long time ago,messed up their recoding date. I am running out of patience for the bank to take action...I figure even when they admit the mistake, they won't compensate me for the extra months mortgages and expenses due to the delay.What type of attorney shall I seek? Specialized in title? and what compensation shall I ask for?