Problem with Deed

[Debt]

name of your state? MA

I am in what I thought were the final stages of purchasing a home from my Uncle, the Executor of the estate who inherited it from my deceased grandmother along with his four siblings.

Of the five siblings three remain, one being my father and including my Uncle the Executor. I have been involved in this process for five months now and was happy to find out that we were approaching a closing date.

I had received request for information from the bank's lawyers about the title and have provided them with all information requested some time ago. Because this has ended up being such a long process I wanted to make sure that there would be nothing else they (bank and their lawyers) would need from me, so I called the bank's lawyers to say looks like the bank has everything they need (according to the loan officer) and that after the final information is review/approved I would get a closing date, is everything ok with the title?

I then get a call back from the bank's law office to say that they would make sure and get back to me soon. I get another call from the bank's attorney yesterday to say that they think my Uncle would need to obtain the signatures of the heirs of his two siblings that have died releasing the deed but they were not sure and that they were checking with other title companies to confirm this.

I get a call from my lawyer to say that the bank attorney has gotten back to them to say that my Uncle would definately have to get the heir of his dead siblings to sign off of the deed prior to the sale and that if the estates of these two siblings have not been probated it could take several months before I can close on the house until they are probated.

On top of all of this I'm not sure if the heirs (my cousins) will agree to the amount the house is being sold for or if there might be some jealousy involved on their part.

At this point I don't know what to do. I have already put a couple of thousand dollars into the property in having it inspected and cleaned up (basement flooded and I cleaned out everything)
I have given up my apartment and taken out my retirement because I got the ok from my loan officer. I've signed the P&S and have recieved and signed the commitment letter from the bank.

Do I have any recourse if the heirs decide they don't want to sell the property to me or if they want to increase the price of the house?

Seems like neither the bank nor the bank's lawyer have really done their jobs, if the sale doesn't go through can I go after them? Any advice that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Signed - Tired and Frustrated

 

[Dandy Don]

Don't even THINK about trying to go after the bank or the attorney for anything--they are doing an excellent job for you in making sure all the legal technicalities are being taken care of before the sale goes through--how could they have been expected to know about your family's situation of the heirs being deceased? It's not their fault that things may take a little bit longer than you anticipated.

Did you have an appraisal done before you decided to purchase the home to insure that a fair price is set? Heirs/cousins should have no reason to object if they are going to share in the proceeds of the sale and since you are effectively buying them out (compensating them) for their share by purchasing it.

You need to be contacting the executors of the deceased heirs estates to inform them of this situation and the executors or you can consult with a real estate attorney to figure out how to speed up the process. When did they die and are their estates being probated now or has probate finished on their estates?

 

[Debt]

Problem with deed

One aunt's estate has been probated the other doesn't seem that it has. The house has sat empty for about 3 years and suffered from a flood of the basement which was allowed to sit for over 6 months with significant mold build-up. The house was also broken into several times and was damaged due to this. An appraisal has been done, the house is being sold "As Is" with a discount because of damages and work that I have already put into it (cleaning the basement, and house)

I'm sure that the bank and it's lawyers were only doing their jobs but it seems to me that they should of investigated the deed some time ago instead of it being a case of me inquiring about it when we are close to closing after spending over five months getting to this point.

Incidentally, One of the reasons why it took so long was that the bank forgot to add in a 10% contingency for the rehab money that I am receiving with the mortgage. Although this is standard proceedure, the bank sent me a comittment letter in early November and had to nullify it because they had to re-write the loan which took a month. I got my 2nd comittment letter in early December. The bank lied about the delay and told me that they were waiting for approval from an outside agencies that had to approve the process. After two weeks of waiting I asked if I could contact this agency but was told by my Loan Officer that he had no contact information for them and that only the underwriter could contact them. I looked the agency up on the web and found contact information for them. I emailed the agency and got a response back indicating that they knew nothing about what I was asking them. They in turn contacted my Loan Officer who then contacted me to fess up that they were actually rewriting the loan.

So if I feel like they been a little neglectful you now know why.

 

[Dandy Don]

Please make sure you have the home inspected or whatever the procedure is for mold-damaged homes (environmentally checked for safety) before you move in--maybe you have heard in the news about health problems from people who live in mold-infested homes and you need to be absolutely sure it is safe to live in before you move in.