How risky is skipping your real estate due diligence?
When I say real estate due diligence, I mean that done by the Realtors, Buyer, Seller, Title Company and everyone else involved.
Imagine this…
You are looking for an investment property. Your Realtor takes you to see a property, opens the lockbox on the front door and keys into the house.
You like what you see and revisit it a couple more times before purchasing it. The house needs work and your plan is to improve it before re-selling it. On goes a new roof, in goes new wiring. You even fix the plumbing problems.
But wait… Something looks amiss with the paperwork at City Hall… so you order a survey.
OMG! You find out that you never bought this house! You bought the one next door. The smaller house with mold, on the much littler lot! The house you have poured thousands of dollars into, was NEVER for sale! It was simply vacant. And oops… there was mix-up!
Now what? Who’s fault is this? How does it get undone? Can it be undone?
All good questions.
This real life scenario is played out in 2012. “Owner” Terry Jordan was embroiled in this real estate nightmare in Senatobia, Miss. Her only goal… to get back the money that she has spent on the house.
Other examples of foreclosure fiascos…The Huffington Post, commenting on this story, said “banks are still showing signs of disorganization on all things foreclosure.”
- A Houston couple were threatened with foreclosure last fall even though they’re current on their payments. The problem: The title to the property was never transferred into their name when they bought it in 2008.
- A Pasco County, Fla., couple faced foreclosure “not for missing a payment but for sending one in too early” one month and using the wrong routing number the next month.
- In Northampton, Mass., last June a man “got a letter stating his home would be seized if he didn’t pay up zero dollars and zero cents!” reported News 22 WWLP.