All Forum Posts by: Tim Priebe

If the owner is in foreclosure, your contract must comply with the Colorado Foreclosure Protection Act. There are criminal and civil penalties of you do not comply.

I am an attorney in Colorado Springs. I am currently representing a client in a neighboring city that is being charged criminally for operating a STR without a business license. While I am cleaning up the issue the city is having him pay his retro city taxes, lodging taxes, etc. Also they forcing him to convert from residential water rates to commercial and to pay the retro fees on those fees. All fees have late fees, failure to file fees, etc.

Moral of the story, if the government smells money they will find it. It may take them some time but they will.

While I am not giving you legal advice, I can give you some general thoughts. POAs can be financial, medical or general. What I would do is make sure the POA is current (meaning is it time limited), I would check the powers of the POA to see if it includes something similar to what he is wanting to do (some POAs will state one of the powers may be to collect or distribute personal property) and I would request a signed written note from her indicating her desire for him to pick up her stuff. I would want to have a copy of the POA and her note for my file.

Hope that helps.'

Tim

You need to proceed carefully with both bankruptcy and pre-foreclosure issues. Feel free to give me a call and we can talk about what you may need.

Tim

I would also recommend @Colin Smith's group. It is very informative.

@John Hamilton Be wary of people giving you legal advice when they are not licensed to do so themselves. Being licensed to practice law in Colorado and a licensed broker, here is my legal answer: it depends.  It depends on a lot of different factors.  Don't listen to any "guru" as he/she won't be there for you if their answer is wrong.  

I consult and represent brokers, investors, etc. I keep telling wholesalers and those who want to start doing that the writing is on the wall. As someone pointed out, DORA (Colorado's RE licensing board) put out their "shot across the bow" statement regarding this. They will start to find people who are not licensed and will go after them. Just wait till the market cools somewhat.

As was also stated above, do SOME research before you send your offer. Get the owner names correct for instance. That same very lowball offer that they agreed to sell their house for will be used against you when they (or their adult children if the person is elderly and uninformed) file a lawsuit against you. Obviously, you need to make money on deals but if you did so unethically it will bite you.

Think about a year from now having to explain your side of the deal in a deposition with their counsel drilling you with questions. If you can do so with legitimate numbers, etc, you are probably good. 

Just last week I advised a client to walk away from a potential deal. The owners were in their eighties, the wife showed real signs of lack of competency, the home was in joint tenancy and the buyer was going to loan some money for a life estate and also draft a purchase agreement for when they die. There were other issues related to probate that I won't get into. I foresaw the adult children fighting this as soon as their parents died. Any financial profit would have been dwarfed by the legal fees and potential CRIMINAL charges of elder abuse. 

Anyone over the age of 70 is considered an elder in Colorado. Theft or exploitation of anything over $500.00 is a felony and is punishable with 4-12 in prison.  

Be careful out there. 

You can look up the property tax records through the assessor's office and see where the tax statement is being sent to. 

@Steve K.. You mention not wanting to "feed the lawyers"- let's talk about the dietary requirements of the legal system. From my experience (23 years), I will tell you that attorneys can be fed one of two ways. 1) appetizers or 2) five course meals.

People see items such as operating agreements, contracts, etc, as a check the box kind of thing- "my bank requires an operating agreement so I will use my favorite attorney, Google, to obtain one".  Then they fill it out with their best friend, childhood buddy, best man at their wedding, salt of the earth kind of person. They don't have an attorney review it. About three to five years down the line, (just when they start making a profit) something goes wrong and the person you thought was upstanding turns out not to be. 

So now there is full blown litigation, TWO attorneys charging and quickly the whole thing goes belly up. 

Fellow Pocketies, from the start use professionals. Work it into the budget like you would insurance, etc. A good CPA and attorney from the start might seem out of reach. However, the alternative is really expensive. There are professionals out there that will work with people new to the business. I won't turn away a potential client if I see that they will be using our services again. Of course, I strive to keep them happy so they will come back. 

Like Tom Hanks found out in "Castaway", 1) make the time to go to the dentist when something first starts to hurt and 2) yes, you can do your own dentistry work but its gonna hurt.

@Burt L. As was stated above, you can purchase the property outright with cash subject to the lien. This way there is no title insurance or the protections that title insurance provides.

If you go this route, you can not refinance or sell the property until you clear the title. To clear the title you would have to file a quiet title lawsuit. However, if the mortgage company has gone out of business, you could probably clear title by default , as they will probably not file an answer to the lawsuit.