SA Realtors! Short Sale - How to Check for Liens?

[kevcrawford]

That's a good clause to have. It will most likely take 6-8 weeks. If you have the patience, you can get a good deal on a short sale. Just know going into it that you're going to have weeks where you hear nothing.

[motown mary]

scuba steve - are you in any way responsible for those liens?

per my earlier post about the contract addition: Realtors - how can this be worded (if the bank does not accept or deny in X days, we reserve the right to rescind our offer for any reason without penalty or loss of earnest money.)

[scuba steve]

Nope! They're a couple of loans the current (for the next week and a half) owners took out. The first I assume to pay for the house from the amount, the second was a home equity loan. Dates and lending institutions are included. Although it does include the loan I'll be taking out.

Sad thing is, the value of my loan is about the same as what theirs was when they bought 4 years ago. They had 100% financing for sure.

[kevcrawford]

Originally Posted by motown mary

scuba steve - are you in any way responsible for those liens?

per my earlier post about the contract addition: Realtors - how can this be worded (if the bank does not accept or deny in X days, we reserve the right to rescind our offer for any reason without penalty or loss of earnest money.)

A Realtor can't really offer you this advice, as you're under contract with another agent. Stepping into something like this would violate rules and leave ourselves open for trouble, should your deal crash.

You seem like you have some real trust issues with your Realtor's competence levels. I'm not sure if they're justified or if you're just being overly cautious. If you don't trust your Realtor to write this contract, I'd advise you to ask them to get their Broker involved.

To randomly solicit advice on a public forum isn't a good idea, as you have no idea whether the people you're asking are anymore qualified than your Realtor.

It's very easy to protect yourself with that contract, but you need to take it up with your Realtor or their Broker.

[motown mary]

yeah, now we are looking for a real estate lawyer to look at it. we do have trust issues with our realtor because she is very new to this (was assigned to us by relo company) and we had no idea we'd be getting into more complicated issues, like a short sale, with her. Otherwise we would have asked for someone else. But she is involving her manager every step of the way.

[kevcrawford]

Short sales really aren't complicated. They just take patience. As long as you have an out clause in special provisions, you should be fine. The broker or lawyer should be able to help you write it.

Other than taking a bit longer, it's really a traditional deal.

[SanAntoQT]

Originally Posted by banker

This offers very valuable information. You might be shocked to find out how easily information is available.

Yep, I've come across pleadings, etc., with personal info, i.e. driver's license numbers, social security numbers. Whoever posted the documents for public viewing didn't bother to redact this kind of information.

[scuba steve]

I understand... my company is covering relocation to San Antonio like yours is, and the realtor subject came up a while back. The only thing that saved me from being in the same spot is that I was put in contact with someone from my future work group that made the same Seattle -> San Antonio move I'm doing last year. I got a recommendation from him.

He wound up canning the first realtor who wasn't terribly helpful and going with someone else. If you want to do the same I'm sure you could scare up a recommendation or three from here.

[smitty12]

Originally Posted by SanAntoQT

Yep, I've come across pleadings, etc., with personal info, i.e. driver's license numbers, social security numbers. Whoever posted the documents for public viewing didn't bother to redact this kind of information.

That is really the fault of the lawyers and people who included that unneeded information in documents they knew would be open records. This information has alway been open availiable to anyone willing to spend some time down at the courthouse. It is really nothing new, except it is easier to get to the documents... A skilled identity thief 10 years ago would have just spent time downtown.

If you look as some SEC filings you will sometimes see SSNs of the CEO's of those companies. I know one of the recent Nike filing included Mark Parkers SSN. Same thing there the Government doesn't care that you include your private information in public filings. It is your job to protect that stuff not theirs....