NWR - Help!

islandmonkey8

My FI and I are set to close on our house Wednesday at 1:30. This morning my attorney called to tell us there is a problem. The property is multiple lots. Apparently only some of the lots are the executor of the estate’s, the others are the deceased siblings/children and we don’t know the names of or where these other people are and they all have to sign the deed for the sale. The attorney doesn’t see how we could possibly close on Wednesday or now he says even in the next month. He’s asking us what we want to do. We don’t know what we want to do. We love this house and there isn’t anything else out there like it. We don’t know what to do. We’re also afraid of walking away and losing all the money we already put out toward this house. Help!!

achiduck

Where are you living now and how much flexibility is there with that?

islandmonkey8

We currently are staying at his parents. Our lease was up last month so we put everything in storage and are "camping out" at his parents. That's the only good thing. I'm just afraid if we wait it could all fall through anyway.

achiduck

Well it's in your favour that your living arrangements are flexible.

I think you and your FI need to decide how long you're willing to wait for this house. If it's going to be another month, you can probably tough if out, but it's going to be 6 months then I would probably let it go if I was in your shoes.

It's just a yucky situation.

CFM102012

I agree with achiduck. Being able to camp at your FIs parents place, while not ideal, is in your favor. Figure out how long you're willing to wait on the place. You can always threaten to walk away, it might get them moving a little faster.

minionlover

To be honest with you it sounds like your real estate agent, attorney or title company didn't do their homework.  You should have found out a long time ago that their were multiple owners.  Do you even know if the actual owners are selling their lots?  Can you just purchase the lot with the house on it and deal with the others later?  Working for an attorney who did some real estate and now working for the County in the Real Property Tax dept, this all sounds like a huge head ache and a little shady to me, especially if there are possibly several estates and unknown owners involved.  You may want to give it a week or so to see how things are panning out to make your final decision.  If you pull out of the deal, I would speak to your atty and see if you can get your money back for possible misrepresentation of the property ownership.

islandmonkey8

So, our attorney is telling us that the title company is saying they might not be willing to insure the house and we then would not be able to purchase it. The Estate is responsible for 2 of the 5 lots, but the sale will not be insured unless all parties for the other 3 lots sign the deed. However, they don't know everyone who is responsible for the rest of the lots because the deceased 7 siblings get the other land, and 5 of them are deceased and therefore it depends who gets there stuff who has to sign the deed. We don't want to walk away, but we feel that SOMEONE should have seen this coming on the seller's side.

lv2011

I would take it back to the seller and have them give you a firm answer on who needs to sign, when/ if they can, and some sort of guarantee of full ownership at close (so there's no unknown siblings coming to you after the fact to say "hey, that's my land"). Give them a timeline to get back to you (like 1-2 weeks). If they can't get it figured out in that time frame, then they probably won't be able to in a month either. Make sure they have certificates of death for the other siblings that have ownership, too.

That really stinks that you have to deal with that when you're so close to closing! But better to get it figured out now than deal with repercussions down the road. Good luck!