Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

I believe tradition states that his estate goes to the evil viceroy who plotted his death.

I feel bad today. My neighbor is (was) an old woman who lived on fixed income. Her house was falling apart.

A couple years ago, she had a pretty major surgery. And moved away to stay with her daughter. One day I came home and her house was gone. They had completely demolished it, removed the rubble, and put grass seed down while I was at work. I contacted her and asked her if she wanted to sell the land. I was willing to pay a fair price for it. She said she didn't want to sell it right away, and that she would keep me in mind.

Today I get home, and there is a sign on a tree next to her old mailbox. I look at it, and it says the property has been foreclosed due to non payment of taxes. And the land is being put of for public auction later this summer. I will be attempting to purchase it once I figure out the details on the auction.

The part that makes me feel bad is now I'm going to likely get the land I wanted, at a discount, and she's going to get nothing. I was more than willing to buy it over the last couple years. She just never put it up for sale.

Wow. That is messed up. Did she pass away over that time, or is she still alive? That could be part of the explanation for what happened. If she passed away, then depending on how the finances were on the property, it may have been a net loss for her heirs to keep it versus just letting it default to the bank/whomever.

It is a strange set of choices though. Usually a property is going to be more valuable with a home on it (any building) than just an empty lot. Even if the building is dilapidated. It generally costs less to repair/remodel an existing structure than to build one from scratch (permits alone are a massive difference, which is why many owners will go to great lengths to make whatever modifications they're making fit into a "remodel" rather than a "rebuild" category). To spend money to demolish and remove the existing building is weird. Doubly so if you were going to just leave it there and ignore it and let it be the government's problem down the line. Now, we can assume that wasn't the plan initially, but it's still a strange move to make.

Then again, lots of people make strange choices in that situation. My siblings and I have had a few conversations about what to do with our mom's home and property "when the time comes". But it's not an easy conversation to have. She has provided information regarding what she wants done with her animals, and we've managed to get her to stop breeding anymore (the animals), so hopefully she'll outlive them. We also managed to convince her to remove all animals from inside the home (which was, frankly, a major problem). That was in conjunction with a ton of work we did on her house last summer, where we basically put out collective feet down that she was clearly no longer capable of keeping the house clean (or even sanitary) with cats in the house. What's difficult is recognizing that a parent is no longer as capable of maintaining a home as they used to be. And then taking action.

Fortunately, our mom is still rumbling around and taking care of most things. She was just never very good at cleaning, and has become more willing to just ignore it as she's gotten older (which was a problem with cats in the house. Like *really* a problem). So most of what we have to do for her is make sure things get cleaned regularly. Oh. And the clutter. It's like pulling teeth to get her to throw away a cardboard box that something came in. Like ever. The good news is that we took the opportunity whilst replacing carpet and tile and whatnot, to toss a ton of stuff. Most importantly, we make sure to visit regularly, to help make sure things don't get out of hand. We're still contemplating the cost of a maid service at this point. But it may be required.


Objective smart choice would be to move her to a home, and sell the property to pay for it. But yeah. That's not an easy thing to do.

Huh. Still strange though. I'd assume the only reason to completely demolish and remove the house would be to reduce the property taxes on the land. Why spend the money (which had to be multiple thousands of dollars I'd assume) doing that, and then not pay the taxes? Could have not paid the taxes on the land with the semi-collapsed home and gotten the same result, minus the cost of demolition. Obviously, the plan changed along the way. It's just hard for me to see what "the plan" was in the first place.

Property values may be different in your neck of the woods, but around here the difference between land with a structure on it, versus not, is pretty massive. Even one that's falling apart. You could sell that to a developer for far more than the cost of the empty lot, who will gladly take the existing foundation and building infrastructure, repair what can be, then replace and rebuild the walls and roof and whatnot, and sell it for a profit. Everyone makes out. Spending money actually removing the home entirely (was that everything, including foundation, pipes, hookups, etc?) just seems like an odd thing to do. And again, it's a code thing which can vary based on where you are, but around here, you have to meet certain requirements to declare something an "empty lot" (which would make it qualify for less taxes). But once done, the cost to reverse that and build a new building from scratch is pretty high. Hence why someone will pay far more for a lot with a home on it (even if the walls and roof are collapsed), than an empty lot of the same size.

Dunno. I'm sure there's more to it. It's just an interesting scenario is all. And at the end of the day, it is kinda sad, since you were willing to buy the property back then, which would have worked out better for everyone.

I've never participated in any of these auctions before. I will have to call them up or stop at the court house and ask what the process is.

I mean, it says "Auction"... but I have no idea how the auction is actually held.


Edit:
I just checked. Looks like their auctions are sometime in August.

Also checked the taxes on that piece of property. Looks like for 2013 and 2014 they did have the value set to the property with a house, even though no house existed. About 700 dollars in taxes per year. (Property values are low here). Current year has been adjusted properly, and is only about 160 dollars.

I wonder what the rules are regarding taxes. If I buy it, do I take on the back taxes too? Will have to figure that out, and factor it into the price of the lots.

Edited, Apr 25th 2016 10:26pm by TirithRR

First, there's really nothing to feel bad about. You gave her the chance and she didn't take it. Second, and probably more important, you should find out what kind of auction it's going to be. You could be bidding on the right to pay the past due taxes instead of the property itself. Which, depending on how you feel, you can then sell back to Granny and charge some interest to make some money off the deal and get her property back in the process ... though the fact she's in the situation in the first place makes that pretty risky.

Am I the only one having problems with words running off the page and zooming out does nothing to fix?

Was displaying that way on my tablet this morning but my computer at work seems to be fine.

The issue is a certain type of site ad they have. I dealt with it a couple years back, and there was/is a big thread I made in the site feedback forum.

It comes and goes as they use the ad type, and refreshing at different times loads different ads on occasion, which is why when it does occur, it can stop for a moment and then come back.

Thread in question

Edited, Apr 26th 2016 5:27pm by TirithRR

I checked the auction details. Seems that it is a real auction, numbered signs and all. Covers five counties in the area.

Read through the rules, and the purchase is for the property. You do have to pay any owed taxes ontop of the purchase price. It is a quit claim deed, so I'm not sure what sort of things may happen if the original owner wants it back. There is a real big FAQ on the auctioning site. But a lot of the finer details have to do with the purchase of homes where the original tenants may still be living there.

A few coworkers of mine have bought land through it before. One said the sign showed up on his neighbors property, and he went out there that same day and took it down to reduce competition. He also said there are always people there looking for cheap land, but usually give up after they see someone actually wants it, after a few hundred dollars in bid raises.

Also looks like you can bid online. But it's slow and not always reliable.

That wouldn't be too far from the truth.

She was a hoarder. We were actually surprised that she was able to get most of that stuff out of there. Still two fairly large piles of stuff left.

Just go the Israel route and expand your home onto the property. Right of Settlement and all that.