Emminet Domain on Abandon House.

[Bill Guerra aka Bill in Vegas]

Hi,
have this house that has been vacant and vandelized for about 2 years, bank of america is paying the taxes on it. Yet after several attempts have been made to contact the bank who state they do not own it. amd are very hard to get cooperatin. Tax records show otherwise.

Myquestion is can i go in fix it up and rent it out month to month? I hear the worse tht can happen is simply a tresspassin fine. Needs about 8k work on it, I am considering taking the risk, my thought is geez, they would simply have to sell it to me once they figure out they own it!

Thoughts, experiances, ideals?

thank you,
Bill

[Mr.fancypants]

Hi Bill in Vegas,

That's crazy that the bank doesn't even know they own it. I've heard of that happening to private individuals that might own an abandoned house, but never a bank. It sounds like somewhere the property just fell off their radar. To remind them that they do in fact own the house just confront them with the tax records. I guess the only other option is that the tax records are out of date because of a recent sale. Maybe another RE investor has it under contract? I am thinking it would be best to know the whole story before you rehab it and rent it out. You really can't make money off of something that's not legally yours. Hope this helped.

[tedjr]

Howdy Bill:

I helped a friend employee do some fix up on one and he lived there 18 months free before he was kicked out by the property management company. We did not spend any money just some time cleaning and a used hot water heater at a yard sale and took down some plywood that was covering windows.

On another house I started the rehab and was told that I could foreclose on the owner that I thought I had signed a contract with. I actually refinanced the house and got a title policy as well after the foreclosure and rehab. About 5 years later the real owners showed up in BK court. It has been in court now 5 years with no action. It is boarded up again and taxes are not being paid. What a mess.

Yet another blunder on my part as I trusted the same wholesaler to help me get the deed again on a duplex. I started the rehab on his word that it was OK. I was doing most of the work with a helper. Just some sheetrock repair and interior paint. I found some used carpet and we got them both rented for $600 per month within a month. I was in the black after two months not including my labor. I never got a deed.  After about a year of collecting rents I get a call demanding the return of the security deposit from the management company and that they had taken over the property. I talked to them several times afterwards but that was it.

I would not do any of these again. I certainly would not do the $8000 in repairs hoping to get to buy a property. You have no recourse to recover the money you spend and that is a lot of money to risk.

My friend never got trespassing fines or anything but it was wrong.

The bank will not have to sell it to you either.  One thought is you could file a material and mechanics lien like I did and then foreclose but it will end up in court and you would be the loser because you do not have a contract to repair the property either written or verbal. They may decide just to sell it to you instead of a court battle but it is not worth the risk and trouble. You would more than likely lose all your money.

Let us know what happens. Hope my expereince helps.

PS You do not have emminet domain. This is only for the govt to take your property for public use and pay you appraised value for it.

[ecodev]

Bill,
Go back to the previous owner before the bank and find the defaulted mortgage that resulted in their ownership. With that document you'll be able to get farther down the path.

[Paul the Broker]

Bill,

Here in Texas there is a condition used to gain control of property such as you have described. It is called Adverse Possession, not Eminent Domain.

Adverse Possession is defined as - a method of aquiring title by possession under certain conditions. Generally, possession must be actual, under claim of right, open, continuous, notorious, exclusive, and hostile(knowingly against the rights of the owner). Exact time (years) of the possession and specific requirments (such as payment of property taxes) vary with the statutes of each state.

More than likely, some type of legal action to obtain clear title is occuring. Any effort on your part to improve and lease a property you do not own would be at least unwise and at worst fraudulent (criminal?). Whoever owns it would be under no obligation to sell it to you. If you have obtained your information as to who has been paying taxes/ownership from a public database CAD online, I would venture to say that we find those types of records to be very inaccure quite often. I run accross CAD errors constantly. Sometimes it looks like these people input information incorrectly on purpose. So if BOA says they don't own it, they very well may not. If the taxes are up to date, it has not fallen through a crack. Check the adverse possession statute in Nevada. Stick a sign in the front yard that says you own it and see what happens. People here have done this before and gotten away with it (according to one of my instructors).