Also almost all the sheriff auctions simply transfer the **portion** of ownership of the previous person to you. It makes no guarantee whatsoever you will own the house with a clear title or clean deed.
Example - bobby owns 10% of a 1 million dollar house, his third cousin owns 20%, his friend owns the other 70%, the house has a 1.5 million mortgage against it.
Bobby gets arrested/defaults and the government seizes his assets then auction them off. You will see the $1million house getting auctioned, but if you win the auction, all you are going to get is bobby's 10% along with the existing 1.5 million mortgage that comes with it.
So some poor sap is popping the champagne because he thinks he just bought a $1mil house for $200k, not realizing all he got was whatever "ownership portion" that person in question has.
There are cases where people bought in those auctions then after going through the title check etc..realize the person actually had ZERO ownership on the property, which basically means you made a charity contribution to the government (without the tax benefits).
Long story short, the auction results are meaningless without running a title check and figure out what the money actually bought.
Fort lee is relatively healthy upper-middle class market, you not going to get free lunches.
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