approach on ugly house

Foreclosures, Short Sales, Tax Foreclosures
1

My wife and I found a vacant house in our neighborhood. The owner appears to have passed away so we’re going to call possible heirs. It looks like the house has no mortgage, has 20-40k in taxes and a lien by the city and/or bank. So we want to see if we can get the deed and get the lien removed by paying the taxes. Do you see any problems in that plan? Also, we saw that there was a lien certificate sale. So I suppose that someone else now owns the lien. Should we get a title search done now to get a clear picture of title or should we see if the current owner is interested first?

The one confusion I have is that the bank listed this and a few hundred other properties in the document titled “tax lien certificate sale.” What I’m confused about is whether the lien was sold or if they were just saying they’re interested in selling the lien. I suppose the answer to that question determines my options.

2

The best way to find out if the property was sold or is being sold in a tax certificate is to ask the county tresury department and ask to speak with someone in regards to the tax cert sale. If you can go online and find out the account number associated with the property, but if not the address should suffice.
You could get lucky and discover that there will be a tax cert sale and your house is one of them, or even luckier by finding out that no one has bought a tax cert on the house. Check to make sure there are no other mortgages or liens associated. But buying a title search is just a waste of money at the moment. And talking to the heirs might give you disinformation instead of getting you where you need to go.
Good luck I hope it’s doable.