Need Help With Dead Man
I own a newly constructed 2 family home next to a very run down property (also a 2 family home). I am interested in purchasing this property to build another 2 family. Here is my problem: This property was owned by an 86 year old man who supposedly has no family. He rented the 1st floor 3 years ago to a bunch of drug dealers. 6 months ago they found the owner dead in the basement of the house. Since then the 1st floor tenants have been keeping the taxes paid on the property but they do not own it. I did a property search and found that it is still in the old mans name. The primary tenant has since been arrested on drug charges and was sentenced to 5 years. There must be 20 people living in this house now. I am under the impression that if the owner had no heirs, the state would then sieze the property. How does the state even know that this guy is even dead? Who do I deal with to buy the property? According to the municipality, as long as the taxes are paid they do not get involved. There are no mortgages on the property either. Who would I contact at the state level and how do I end up buying the property?
Repoman [ Edited by RepoMan on Date 10/15/2003 ]
The man may have a will. If he does, it will need to be found and probated. Where is it? Likely there is a copy at his attorney's. Who is his attorney? Uh oh. The only way to find that out is to find his kin.
OK, so next you need to find his nearest relative. This would also solve the problem if he *doesn't* have a will, as the property will pass to that person or perons by intestate succession.
His mother and father are likely long dead. That means you'll be looking for a son or daughter, sister or brother, nephew or niece. This is simply a matter of geneological research, and you can get that done for a fee.
But ... if you're willing to lose control over the process of locating heirs, and your main concern is the hooligans in the house, you need to contact your city code enforcement (or police) and tell them that there is a nuisance that exists, and why it exists. They need to shut the house down and have a receiver or trustee appointed for the estate. He or she will find the heirs and see that the property is properly disposed of and the heirs get their due.
That is my problem...there are no relatives and I doubt that he left a will. At what point does the State step in to the picture and does anyone know what department of the state would be the one to step in.
Repoman
It seems like an obvious answer -- so obvious as to be flip -- but, what did your attorney tell you when you posed your problem to him/her?
DaveT,
I ran this situation past my attorney earlier today. He is running a check for possible aires, although our Detective Agency already ran a check for possible relatives nationwide and came up with a goose-egg. According to the attorney, I should hope that there are relatives that I can deal with rather than the State. He said that dealing with the State could take years. I am investing a few bucks on the research because it is a nieghboring property that would be conveniently managed. I am a bit lost as to the obvious answer to the original question. I guess the most obvious thing that the average person would do is to probably walk away from this situation, but then again I dont mind spending a couple of dollars to possibly make a couple hundred thousand. Let me know what you would do?
Thanks,
Repoman
UPDATE:
Our attorney was able to establish that there is a brother who is the sole heir to the estate. We are in the process of obtaining the brothers full address and phone #. Hopefully within the next few days, i can make contact with the brother and make him an offer!! Will keep you posted!!
Thanks
Max
Good luck. Hope this turns out favorably for you.
Does the attorney have locator resources that were not available to your detective agency?
We utilize many searches that are not available to the general public. Our Agency mostly specializes in Identy Theft investigations and this time of the year business is usually at it's peak. In this case, although we did run quite a few simple searches, I opted to let him handle this one being that it would be time consuming to investigate for possible recorded estates and this is something that we have never needed to do before in our day to day investigations. The heir is actually a step brother from the fathers first marraige. Our relative searches rairly bring up step siblings. It was a shot in the dark but it has turned out well so far. I am meeting with the brother this Friday night to discuss the sale. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Funny thing happened with this property back in Febuary when we were building the 2 family next door. Let me start by saying that anyone that reads this thread would think that this property was in a poor nieghborhood. It actually is in a fairly good area...but the tenants in this one house simply need to get out to make it a better neighborhood. Getting back to the story...This house and the 2 fam that I was building had a driveway which for many years was used by both houses although it belonged to the house that we were building. We used up the entire property and the house next door not longer had a driveway. It did, however, have a 2 car garage which now had no access. When our house was half way through construction several Police Officers and Detectives showed up to the house and served the tenants with a warrant. They entered the back yard and went directly to the garage, which to thier surprise housed 2 brand new "stolen cars". It was kind of funny to see the look on the officers face while they sat there trying to figure out how in the world they would get these vehicles, that were completely land locked, out of the property!!! Till today they still remain locked in the garage.
Repoman[ Edited by RepoMan on Date 10/16/2003 ]
UPDATE:
Spoke to the brother yesterday. Signed contract today!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Property value = 165,000.00
Purchase Price = 120,000.00
We will demo and build a new 2 family home on this site.
Cost to build = $140,000.00 (with Demo)
Paid for property = $120,000.00
Total = 260,000.00
New 2 families on this block are going for $390,000.00
Profit = $130,000.00
Projected time to build = 4 months
Works out to $32500.00 per month.
Not too bad for doing a little home work!!!
THANK YOU TCI !!!!
Repoman
Good job!
Congrats on your buy
[addsig]
Nice one, REPO!
Now that dog HUNTS!!
Congrats!!
Ben