Fishy situation selling inherited real estate-- Scam? (appraisal, investment, fee)
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I don't know if it sinks to the level of "scam" but it is not unusual for investors to check the obituaries and then contact the heirs and attempt to purchase real estate, hoping the heirs won't know what it is worth.. There are also investors who will contact people who had a listing that didn't sell.
I don't think they are ethical, but they are not actually breaking the law.
Of course information about who owns that land is available to the public. The worst effort it takes is a call to the tax assessor if ownership is not listed on-line.
If all three of you have to sign, there isn't much your sister can do. I suggest that you try to get the contact information for the "buyer" and let them know that your sister can not sell the property by herself and that the price is $XXXX if they would like to submit a written offer. Give them an address where you would like to have the offer submitted--- your lawyer's office, if you have a lawyer.
No reason not to consider a non conventional offer... just don't get your hopes up.
I sold a piece of property for my parents... by sold, I mean a guy showed up at their home and left his card saying he wanted to buy land they owned.
I asked my parents if they would consider selling and if yes... at what price.
The short story is I prepared the sales agreement with deposit receipt... with detailed terms.
The guy came back and said he wanted to move forward with one change to the closing date... extending it 30 more days...
Everyone signed, he left a check made out to the Title Company and I opened Escrow the next business day and it closed on schedule... my parents were pleased as was the buyer.
He was a developer assembling land for a project that never happened because of the bubble... the land is now parkland and the park district paid pennies on the dollar for it when the developer went bankrupt.
I agree. My sister said that they are communicating via email and she called my older sister and I last night to "approve" moving forward with the amount offered during this email communication. This person is supposedly offering to pay our attorney fees for not using a realtor. All red flags.
So what is that sister's reason for not forwarding the emails to you? Did this person say not to? And that they may run off in the sunset together once the land is sold?
I agree. My sister said that they are communicating via email and she called my older sister and I last night to "approve" moving forward with the amount offered during this email communication. This person is supposedly offering to pay our attorney fees for not using a realtor. All red flags.
My bet's on this being in the same group of Nigerian scammers that scammed her before. Has she at least changed her email and passwords etc since that time?
Since your sister seems committed to this lowball offer, why don't the remaining siblings offer to buy-out her portion of the alleged offer - to get her off the deed ... and out of the way for your future sales efforts.
I was going to say the same thing. I was going through the responses here to see if anyone else did.
I think this is the best thing to protect the property, a sound emergency measure. Odds are good there will be a problem...someone buying her share or somehow she and someone claiming to have made a deal on the whole thing and just messing things up. Doing all you can to buy her out is a sound business practice.
It's probably the Nigerian internet scammer coming back for more!
As I'm sure you know, an offer on real estate is only an offer if it's in writing - there are too many factors and details involved for it to be verbal.
How sad for you that you have to deal with a sibling like this, and how sad for her that she's this way.
Confused....maybe what you could do it tell your sis that you (and your non-delusional sis) are willing to work with the "offer" so to send it over to the real estate attorney who's handling it for you and that will most likely put a kibosh on the whole situation (any sale must go throuhg an attorney at least).
Last edited by adventuregurl; 01-18-2014 at 02:00 PM..
None of us want this property-- we all have homes of our own in other areas. My younger sibling is the only person with a lifestyle that would be a good fit for this place, and we have offered to let HER buy us out at a low price, but her response was "If I want it, I will just take it". My older sister and I shut that down. I wonder though, if this latest discourse is some sort of scheme so that she can do just that, but I can't figure out the angle.
Did she happen to live with your parents and does she basically consider the property 'hers'? -- The problem you could run into, particularly if she were to move into and occupy the property ... is getting her back out and/or keeping her from sabotaging any future sale. If you are unable/unwilling to buy each other out, it would be in your best interest to keep this aspect of the situation under control.
Assuming the three of you own the property as tenants in common, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act would help you.
And assuming you can divide the property into 3 equal parcels - younger sister will own one parcel to do as she sees fit, you and your older sister would sell your two parcels to whomever.
I know families hate going to court, but sometimes you just have to.
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