A little side note: A while back I seen a spreadsheet of Beverly Hills California mineral rights holders, a surprising amount of them live in Texas.It was for actively producing wells of Black Gold--Texas "T", and the checks are for a LOT more then $150 a month.https://www.youtube.com/watch?

You have the legal right to a payoff amount as a title holder in succession.  

Supposedly the borrower decided to stop answering and hasn’t made any payments in years according to the note holder.

Here, title holder cannot waive, as the appropriate regulation is directed at the taxing authority, not the title holder.

@Kim Holder“If you were going to hold onto the property for another 10 years, what would you fix or change on the property?”

An option is a document giving the holder of the option the right, but not the obligation to purchase the property within a certain time frame, at a particular price.You have hard money financing backwards.

I dn't think you mortgage holder will allow a change to your mortgage.They want a person with a credit score and history on the hook to pay them back. 

I always like to add a first right of refusal clause in there, so if the note holder/property owner wants to sell the mortgage at a discount in the future, they must first offer the discounted price to you to pay off in full.From there, you'll want to close with a title company as normal, getting all of the proper insurance, etc assuming its marketable through a warranty deed. 

I have seen these sold before, but I would think if there is equity 1st lien holder would go in and buy it....or they just let it go, knowing when they foreclose it will get wiped out.Sometimes the trick can be getting the 1st lienholder to talk to you I would expect.Also something to think about is with $10K HOA lien, how many years is that? 

Meanwhile, nobody will "officially" purchase it from you since official records don't show you as the holder of Title.