He has dementia, so my grandmothers has been assigned responsibility for his financial endeavors being that he is not of sound mind to conduct business himself.

Unless it is for $0 cash in hand of the seller, nobody should ever accept a quitclaim deed without first conducting a full title search.

Instead, it looked like I was pointing the finger at people whose business practices and code of professional conduct I respect.

I'm not sure what your scope of representation was with the attorney, but assuming it was within the scope to conduct a title search, the attorney should have noted the unpaid taxes, which then should have been paid by the seller at or prior to closing.  

I will certainly conduct more due diligence with a deal like what you described above.

For example when I looked into it, I was quoted $15k for an engineer from the cost seg firm to conduct a quality study on just one of my properties, and the tax benefits for me (despite being a real estate professional) didn't justify that expense. 

I'm amazed at the number of folks where the ethics of how they conduct their business does not even seem to cross their mind.

Americans are increasingly favoring renting over home ownership according to the most recently conducted Freddie Mac renter survey.

Once they let you know about potential deals, you can use these 10 factors, in combination with your personal criteria and goals, to conduct your own thorough research while avoiding overwhelm.

Land doesn't have to be the subject of the transaction, but you'll always be located someplace to conduct business, even if it's at your kitchen table on the phone.Learn the basics or RE and what makes RE valuable, then how to manage those  functions to facilitate a transaction, if you have no capital it will take labor and management to make up for the lack of money.