One day the seller (now living in Florida) called me and said he
had another house in my town for sale. After finding out the address
of the house he wanted to sell, I told him I was not interested. He
accepted my decision saying that he had another prospective buyer
anyway.
About a year later I received a call from the old man from Florida. He told me a
long story about how he had sold the house (that he had tried to sell to me a
year earlier) to a painting contractor who was now in default on his payments. He
needed my help.
I asked him if he sold the house to the painting contractor using the same method he sold to
me. He said, “yes”. I said, “too bad, because now you are going to have to foreclose.” Since the
old man had put the title to the property in the name of the buyer and then recorded a mortgage, his only option
was to foreclose the mortgage.
Foreclosure can be expensive and time consuming depending on what state the property is located in, but it is
always a hassle! The old couple from Florida had a long and expensive road ahead of them to regain
possession of the property they had sold to the painting contractor.
Wanting to help the old couple out, I told them I would hire an attorney for them (at their expense, of course) to
handle the foreclosure. Then, when it appeared that things could not get worse, the painting contractor died
before we could get him served with the foreclosure action.
The contractor’s death resulted in the old couple having to hire two attorneys (one to represent them and one to
represent the estate of the dead contractor). Since the contractor had no assets upon his death and had two
judgment liens that were recorded against his house, no heir wanted to get involved. Thus the need to hire the
second attorney to represent the contractor’s estate in the foreclosure action.
The Old Man and His House