There are close to 1000 of these courts in Texas so no one can tell exactly how your particular Judge will rule.

If you take money out with the express purchase of taking on an FHA loan (i.e. new PR) with the proceeds, then you'll need to declare your current home an investment property to stay on the right side of mortgage fraud laws.

So I get there after 8.30pm, made new friends and met lots of people and general contractors.See this link:http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/phill-grove-scam-you-be-the-judge/nationwide/phill-grove-love-american-homes-phill-grove-real-estate-coaching-scam-austin-texas-1277687

@Gene Walker, take your certificate to the probate judge where the property is assessed (Jefferson or Cutoff), pay $5, fill out the application for a deed and wait for the deed to come in the mail.

(For others reading this, you'll likely find it in your declarations under a section called "use restrictions" or something like that.)But you'd also run up against Aurora's Airbnb law.

Hi Robert, yes sometimes the collateral files may have an insurance declaration policy in the file, but the majority of the time those are not exposed or included.

As a final note, judges are typically slow to evict during the holiday season I have found...

So don't judge your Realtor just yet, only after that time on market goes above 80 days, you can start seriously considering dropping price. 

Really appreciate it one thing that scares me is you say your lease allows electronic notices, but your lease cannot trump state law. you need to research your local tenant laws to find out what is required of you. its good that you followed up by mail, but many times you are required to use certified mail. what will you do if you get in front of  a judge and the tenant says, "I never received the letter or email." you have no proof. take this tiem to read up on local laws surrounding evictions. failure to follow proper procedures in many states can mean an extension of the time tenant is in unit, paying nothing.

@Derek E. sorry you feel that i am greedy, you do not even know me, quite truthfully that is a tough position to be in. chances are i probably would give the money back but i was giving the OP a different view and a way to go about it if he needed to hold onto the money. what if this place was sitting vacant for a while and money was being lost, but finally someone rented it that would help you pull from your losses, you may be in need of that money, you do not know everyone's financial position. i think the OP would still be doing a generous thing by letting them out of a 2 year lease and not claiming they had a financial obligation, which they may not pay, then you have to go through the eviction process that would cost you money. we can all sit behind the computer and tell everyone how bad they are, as this world seems to do nowadays, but we should not judge other people because of some misinterpreted advice and some holier than though attitude. if you look, this is the OP first post and maybe new to investing, all he is looking for is different views, i am certainly not going to tell the poster what he should do, because we all have different views on how things should be done.