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May. 12th, 2006 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday at work we went to a sheriff sale of property. This is what happens to bad homeowners who do not pay their mortgage payments and have run out of encores for the ever popular song and dance number We'll Pay Some Money REAL SOON NOW. It takes a while to get to foreclosure because banks really don't want the buildings. They would like the money. They only take the building if it's clear that there is no more money forthcoming from the mortgagee. There were two properties going on the block today, one in Saxton and one in Bedford. We were interested in the one in Bedford.
Sheriff sales are announced in advance, in the newspaper and in the local legal journal and such like that. They're also on the bulletin board at our sheriff's office. You need to know about sheriff sales in advance because the properties do not come with a warranty or a back-out period or anything like you might get when dealing with a realtor in a more traditional real estate purchase. The initial announcements tell you the properties, their tax-map numbers, and who owns 'em. If any of the properties up for grabs interests you, you hie over to the appropriate courthouse for the properties and start with the looking up of things.
I don't know how other courthouses work, but ours have computers. They have a sort of intuitive interface and you type in what kind of search you want to do and then you can type in the name of the person (which you got from the announcement). It'll bring up everything listed under that person for having to do with properties and then you can select the appropriate documents to review. This is a free thing. It does not cost money to go to the courthouse and dick around to find the deed for the property and/or the mortgage recorded against the property. At our courthouse, they don't ask for ID or anything, either. You just walk in and start with the computer screen. If there is some confusion about the properties or if the person has like fifty deeds listed to his or her name and you're still confused about which property is actually up for sheriff sale, you can ALSO go to the county tax office and look at their tax maps to find out what parcel is being referenced (this is also in the initial announcements). The tax office is also a free thing you can do. This sort of legwork is a good place to start. Generally you do not get to walk through the property or inspect it or anything, but sometimes you get lucky. For the property in question at this sale, we managed to run into the owner working in the yard and he kindly gave us a walk-through of the house including the (most interesting for real estate purposes) basement and attic... so we weren't quite looking at a pig in a poke like happens for most things at sheriff sales.
If, after the preliminary legwork, you still haven't found anything that puts you off the property, the next thing to do is hire an attorney to do a title search and make sure that the property has a clear title. This will cost money but shouldn't take too terribly long, a couple of days or a week. (Make sure you get an attorney with some experience doing this stuff.) Assuming everything is still a go after you hear from the attorney, all you have to do is wait for the sale.
Up to the day of the sheriff sale, the property can not-be-sold for a variety of reasons. Maybe the owner listed it with a realtor and they've got a buyer but are waiting on financing. Maybe the owner and the bank have worked out some kind of payment thing. It's hard to tell what the reason is, but you can't guarantee that a listed property will actually be sold. There may be a continuance (like happened with three of the five properties that were supposed to be sold today) and the property will not be sold. You do not know this until you go to the sale.
Our sheriff sales, which are fairly small affairs, take place at the sheriff's office. They will tell you in the assorted notices when and where the sale is, so just read them and go there. It's free to go to the sheriff sale. If you are planning to bid on anything, take a cashier's check for ten percent of the maximum you are planning to bid. (You'll have a relatively small period of time to make payment for the balance of the amount you bid, so make sure you have the money ready for the rest before you go to the sale. Do not bid first and then hope you can get a mortgage later. That's not a good idea. Arrange the money first, up front, before you ever bid.)
At the sheriff sale, you will see at least some of the following people:
1. The sheriff. Our sheriff is Gordon Diehl. At our sales, the sheriff does most of the talking and runs the bidding process and so forth.
2. The bank(s) doing the foreclosing. Usually the banks are represented at the sheriff sale by an attorney. The attorney people dress better than the buyers and invariably come with briefcases or folders of paperwork. The job of the bank representative is to provide a floor to the bidding, so that the property doesn't go for too little money. Obviously, if the bank has 80,000 outstanding on the property, the bank is NOT going to want the property to sell for 10,000 because that would mean the bank would take a 70K hit and banks do not like doing that sort of thing. If you can't spot them before the bidding starts, you can tell the bank representative people once the bidding starts because they will minimally raise the existing bid until all other bidders have dropped out and the bank representative has the high bid OR until the bidding hits the level that the bank has said it should hit.
3. Buyers. These are people who follow sheriff sales and who have the liquidity to buy buildings in distress. They're also the sort of people who are willing to do the legwork for buying something at a sheriff sale and the sort of people willing to buy in a "distressed sale" situation. Sheriff sales are not for everyone.
4. The people being foreclosed upon (sometimes). They don't always attend, just sometimes. When they do show up, it's generally to bid on the property that they are losing.
So. How did the sale go? We looked at a property that had 96.6K outstanding against it plus a 4K-ish credit card judgment from a different bank. The title was fair enough though there was some uncertainty about the credit card creditor having been notified of the sale. No real worry there, though, because even if that creditor had not been notified, you could still get a clear title by paying the 4K to the credit card bank. We liked the property and figured that we would bid up to the amount of the outstanding mortgage, so we did that. Bidding against us was the lady representing the bank. (You do not know ahead of time what the bank is willing to let the property go for. Obviously, the bank would like to get as much money out of the property as they can but sometimes they're willing to cut their losses and take money on the hoof instead of dicking around with a property that they don't really want. The bank representative has instructions on this front but does not share them with anyone ahead of time. You have to go to the sale to see what happens.) We bid to 96.6K. The bank representative bid to 96.7 and "bought" the property. The bank lady took our name and number to offer to the bank people -- she'd been told not to let it go for less than a hundred K but given the total lack of interest at the sheriff sale, the bank might enjoy having a live buyer with actual money instead of fucking around to list the property and paying taxes and seeing that the grass is cut and paying realtor commissions and so forth. Anyway, we'll have to see if the bank calls us or not, but we didn't buy the property at the sale.
I also spent time at work today fixing the windows in Melva's old apartment. Some of them had glazing putty and points missing. Some of them had trim that hadn't been put back in properly. And then there was the window in the bathroom. The window in the bathroom was absolutely covered with... well, it looked like someone had tried to caulk the window shut, except that the caulk was all sticky, like it had never dried properly. It was weird stuff that didn't behave like caulk. It was very sticky. I couldn't get it to scrape off the window with any degree of success. Finally I decided to see if it would wash off with a scrubby sponge and water. I scrubbed. The not-caulk, rather against my expectations, bubbled and foamed. It smelled... minty fresh. Apparently they'd caulked the window with toothpaste.
Sheriff sales are announced in advance, in the newspaper and in the local legal journal and such like that. They're also on the bulletin board at our sheriff's office. You need to know about sheriff sales in advance because the properties do not come with a warranty or a back-out period or anything like you might get when dealing with a realtor in a more traditional real estate purchase. The initial announcements tell you the properties, their tax-map numbers, and who owns 'em. If any of the properties up for grabs interests you, you hie over to the appropriate courthouse for the properties and start with the looking up of things.
I don't know how other courthouses work, but ours have computers. They have a sort of intuitive interface and you type in what kind of search you want to do and then you can type in the name of the person (which you got from the announcement). It'll bring up everything listed under that person for having to do with properties and then you can select the appropriate documents to review. This is a free thing. It does not cost money to go to the courthouse and dick around to find the deed for the property and/or the mortgage recorded against the property. At our courthouse, they don't ask for ID or anything, either. You just walk in and start with the computer screen. If there is some confusion about the properties or if the person has like fifty deeds listed to his or her name and you're still confused about which property is actually up for sheriff sale, you can ALSO go to the county tax office and look at their tax maps to find out what parcel is being referenced (this is also in the initial announcements). The tax office is also a free thing you can do. This sort of legwork is a good place to start. Generally you do not get to walk through the property or inspect it or anything, but sometimes you get lucky. For the property in question at this sale, we managed to run into the owner working in the yard and he kindly gave us a walk-through of the house including the (most interesting for real estate purposes) basement and attic... so we weren't quite looking at a pig in a poke like happens for most things at sheriff sales.
If, after the preliminary legwork, you still haven't found anything that puts you off the property, the next thing to do is hire an attorney to do a title search and make sure that the property has a clear title. This will cost money but shouldn't take too terribly long, a couple of days or a week. (Make sure you get an attorney with some experience doing this stuff.) Assuming everything is still a go after you hear from the attorney, all you have to do is wait for the sale.
Up to the day of the sheriff sale, the property can not-be-sold for a variety of reasons. Maybe the owner listed it with a realtor and they've got a buyer but are waiting on financing. Maybe the owner and the bank have worked out some kind of payment thing. It's hard to tell what the reason is, but you can't guarantee that a listed property will actually be sold. There may be a continuance (like happened with three of the five properties that were supposed to be sold today) and the property will not be sold. You do not know this until you go to the sale.
Our sheriff sales, which are fairly small affairs, take place at the sheriff's office. They will tell you in the assorted notices when and where the sale is, so just read them and go there. It's free to go to the sheriff sale. If you are planning to bid on anything, take a cashier's check for ten percent of the maximum you are planning to bid. (You'll have a relatively small period of time to make payment for the balance of the amount you bid, so make sure you have the money ready for the rest before you go to the sale. Do not bid first and then hope you can get a mortgage later. That's not a good idea. Arrange the money first, up front, before you ever bid.)
At the sheriff sale, you will see at least some of the following people:
1. The sheriff. Our sheriff is Gordon Diehl. At our sales, the sheriff does most of the talking and runs the bidding process and so forth.
2. The bank(s) doing the foreclosing. Usually the banks are represented at the sheriff sale by an attorney. The attorney people dress better than the buyers and invariably come with briefcases or folders of paperwork. The job of the bank representative is to provide a floor to the bidding, so that the property doesn't go for too little money. Obviously, if the bank has 80,000 outstanding on the property, the bank is NOT going to want the property to sell for 10,000 because that would mean the bank would take a 70K hit and banks do not like doing that sort of thing. If you can't spot them before the bidding starts, you can tell the bank representative people once the bidding starts because they will minimally raise the existing bid until all other bidders have dropped out and the bank representative has the high bid OR until the bidding hits the level that the bank has said it should hit.
3. Buyers. These are people who follow sheriff sales and who have the liquidity to buy buildings in distress. They're also the sort of people who are willing to do the legwork for buying something at a sheriff sale and the sort of people willing to buy in a "distressed sale" situation. Sheriff sales are not for everyone.
4. The people being foreclosed upon (sometimes). They don't always attend, just sometimes. When they do show up, it's generally to bid on the property that they are losing.
So. How did the sale go? We looked at a property that had 96.6K outstanding against it plus a 4K-ish credit card judgment from a different bank. The title was fair enough though there was some uncertainty about the credit card creditor having been notified of the sale. No real worry there, though, because even if that creditor had not been notified, you could still get a clear title by paying the 4K to the credit card bank. We liked the property and figured that we would bid up to the amount of the outstanding mortgage, so we did that. Bidding against us was the lady representing the bank. (You do not know ahead of time what the bank is willing to let the property go for. Obviously, the bank would like to get as much money out of the property as they can but sometimes they're willing to cut their losses and take money on the hoof instead of dicking around with a property that they don't really want. The bank representative has instructions on this front but does not share them with anyone ahead of time. You have to go to the sale to see what happens.) We bid to 96.6K. The bank representative bid to 96.7 and "bought" the property. The bank lady took our name and number to offer to the bank people -- she'd been told not to let it go for less than a hundred K but given the total lack of interest at the sheriff sale, the bank might enjoy having a live buyer with actual money instead of fucking around to list the property and paying taxes and seeing that the grass is cut and paying realtor commissions and so forth. Anyway, we'll have to see if the bank calls us or not, but we didn't buy the property at the sale.
I also spent time at work today fixing the windows in Melva's old apartment. Some of them had glazing putty and points missing. Some of them had trim that hadn't been put back in properly. And then there was the window in the bathroom. The window in the bathroom was absolutely covered with... well, it looked like someone had tried to caulk the window shut, except that the caulk was all sticky, like it had never dried properly. It was weird stuff that didn't behave like caulk. It was very sticky. I couldn't get it to scrape off the window with any degree of success. Finally I decided to see if it would wash off with a scrubby sponge and water. I scrubbed. The not-caulk, rather against my expectations, bubbled and foamed. It smelled... minty fresh. Apparently they'd caulked the window with toothpaste.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 10:49 am (UTC)Near as I can tell, MHMR caseworkers function a lot like parents. They help the person arrange a budget and point out blindingly obvious (to the rest of us) things like "You are paying for the heat in your apartment. It will be less expensive for you if you keep the windows closed in the dead of winter." and "This is a late notice for your second quarter water bill. If you do not pay it, the borough will shut off your water." As I understand it, the caseworkers are NOT ALLOWED to force their clients to do the right thing. They can only encourage and suggest while operating under a mandate to provide the people with a safe and healthy living environment. (That's got to be a very frustrating job.)
Melva's son Fred, well, I found out how old he was because he's on the Megan's Law website. 'Nuff said on that front, I think, except that if you've never been to the Megan's Law website for your area, you might take a gander. Those pictures are *recent* -- apparently they aren't allowed to be more than a year or so old.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-15 12:42 pm (UTC)Curiosity is its own punishment.