Title Company Mistake...Action?
I bought a property at the end of January of 2004. As I am trying to refinance it now I come to find out there is a code enforcement lein on it in the name of the previous owner. The violations are on parts of the back mother in law suite and garage as well as the main house roof. No where in the purchse contract where he is supposed to disclose this info was it disclosed. The title company did not come up with this (plus they still have not paid on the back taxes which I do have a lette stating they would), and no real estate broker or agent disclosed any of this.
What action would anyone recommend. I am located in Lakeland, Fl if anyone knows someone (attourney).
Who is at fault and what agencies would you contact (for instance who oversees title companies).
Thank you for any help.
Well lets see how big a problem you have before you start talking about suing people. What is the nature of the code violation? How much would it cost to correct it? When was the suit filed?
$50 a day fine. Filed a month ago. Violations on the roofing and structure of 2 car garage with mother in law suite in back 2 bed 1 bath.
Mitigate your damages. Comm'lking on right path, what is the cost to repair? If its small potatoes, fix & move on. If its small enough, you have Small Claims Ct.
As targets you have previous Owner, his agent, your agent. Might need Atty, must balance cost to Fix vs Cost to Sue (Probability of collecting)
Cost is 50 a day so we are up to about 1k there.
The cost of repairs is 10k.
Attourney would have to work pro-bono.
Any referrals?
Does a typical title search find liens? I have on occassion asked the title company to call the county for and code enforcement problems.
Brenda
I would like to hear from NancyChadwick on this, but when did agents become targets for title problems? I thought that was
A. The title company's job
B. The reason the buyer is advised to buy title insurance.
In may just be my state, but in every contract that I write it says:
A. The buyer is advised to purchase title insurance.
B. If for some reason it is found that the seller cannot provide a clean marketable title, the seller has 14 days to correct the problem. If it is not resolved in 14 days, the buyer has the option to declare contract null and void and be refunded earnest money. I don't recall it saying sue the agents.
It sounds like you were presented a bad title. I do agree that you should seek mediation if available or an attorney to help you sort it out and see what grounds or capabilities you have.
One possible solution is to talk to the code enforcement people (nicely) and ask if they will WAIVE those $50/day fines if you have those problems fixed by a certain date. I bet they will at least negotiate when they learn how you got into this mess and how you are willing to make this problem go away pronto, they just want to know that it will be taken care of soon .
Good luck
Kelly
Wait a minute. Suit filed a month ago, you bought in January. I think your action against the title co. just flew out the window. Do you have evidence that the seller knew about this pending matter?
[ Edited by commercialking on Date 05/29/2004 ]
The code enforcement is against him in his name which means he has previous knowledge. Neighbors also told me that the county code enforcement commission had been over previous to me buying it.
Jetts, Just because the suit is in his name doesn't mean he had prior knowledge (although he may have). That only means that when the city prepared the suit they found his name on the title. You need to ask the city whether they had previously contacted him to be sure he had knowledge.
If he had notice from the city and failed to disclose that notice then you have a pretty good case against him. If, however, you cannot prove he had knowledge that the city was preparing this action I'd say your recourse is pretty limited.
LOL.
this was a case on the peoples court, I think yesterday.
People sold knowing that that had a special assesment due for a new sidewalk, didn't disclose it.
Buy whet to the city and got a copy of the letter they sent and proof of delivery.
The sellers ate it.
p.s.
Unless there is a lein record by the city or county, the title company would find it. This is a seller / sell's agent disclosure issue.
Small claim might be a checp and quick way to get it resolved.
Also, like some ele suggested, get the fines put on hold as you're the victim here.
Similar occasion out here in LaLa land. It was my fault as Buyer as I did not pick up on the faults until after close. The City of Los Angles had not recorded any notices but had delivered a red ticket to the owner. He neglected to inform and at date of close the title company did a date down and nothing showed.
I merely went to the Seller and asked for him to pay or arrange to do the necessary repairs. He called me a dirty name and suggested that as a Licensed Real Estate Broker I should just take my licks. I sued in small claims and My God I won. I now owned judgement. I stopped at tht point cause his soon to be exwife had just clobbered him, his job was gone and his choice in booze was increasing into the 24 Oz bottles. This is the job on which I hit my thumb with a roofers hatchet. Could hardly get it up to my nose anymore. I think I broke even on the transaction.
Cheers Lucius
Quote:
On 2004-05-28 09:45, jjetts4 wrote:
The code enforcement is against him in his name which means he has previous knowledge. Neighbors also told me that the county code enforcement commission had been over previous to me buying it.
Go to the clerk of the court or their website and search the seller's name. If the lien was in place when you bought, it will be recorded there. Once a property owner is notified of a code offense, he is given time to correct it. If not corrected, the offense is presented before a special master who then will impose a fine. The owner is notified at each step of the process and given the opportunity to correct or defend himself.
This lien should have been found by the title company. For future reference, any code enforcement lien recorded against an owner goes against any and all real property owned by that same individual in that same county. In a state other than Florida, the law may be different.
I have a similar situation.
Went to buy a property at an auction, and prior to, had title co. do a title search for me - which my title company does for free. It showed nothing more than one lien - the foreclosing lienholder. So we bought the property - paid $25K for a house worth $270K! Newbies that we are, we had thought that we should purchase title insurance only after the redemption period and we know it's ours - we know now that we should have bought it immediately upon winning the auction.
Anyways, I decided to, about three weeks later, look at the county's foreclosure record on the property online. I couldn't believe it when I saw that a lienholder was attempting to redeem the house. I called the county, and he said basically, "Didn't you see the second lien on the property for $75K, or the $80K IRS lien, or the fact that the owners are in bankruptcy?" My jaw dropped. (The most puzzling thing is why was the property sold at auction to begin with, if two months prior, the owners had filed for Ch. 7?)
We did our due diligence, except now I feel that we should always just do our own title searches, rather than relying on a title co. I'd like to think that there was something legally I could do vs. the title co., but I'm sure that's a pipe dream. Hell, even if we had bought title insurance, we'd probably still lose the property. [ Edited by adambeal1 on Date 06/13/2004 ]