Cannot locate all heirs

[sariejack]

Property is located in Texas.

Fred put in an offer on a house, cash, as-is. The owner of the house is in the hospital so Fred's realtor has been dealing with the owner's wife. The owner bought out his siblings a while back but now, even though they are paid off, our realtor says the owner needs to find these siblings in order to sign the paperwork.

The problem is that the siblings have either passed away or cannot be located. With the owner in the hospital, his wife is trying to find everyone but obviously her hands are a little full right now.

Is there any way for them to sell the property to Fred with a special kind of deed? (I don't understand why they need the additional signatures if the owner bought out his siblings several years back.)

 

[army judge]

OP, I suggest you speak with a local attorney about this.
I'm a Texas lawyer, but real estate is not my area of expertise.
I do seem to recall, that the hoops being placed in front of you aren't required.
Realators aren't attorneys, but often attempt to practice law.
They do so poorly and inadequately.
Therefore, spend $500 and seek a legal opinion.
One caution, even though Fred may have paid his siblings, he may not have properly recorded said sale, and updated the county recorder's office.
In essence, I suspect there could be more than one name (Fred's) on the deed.
If that is the case, you might not want to pursue this deal.
Getting proof of the sale, having a dead person's name removed from a deed, very time consuming and costly.
There are plenty other homes on the market.

Finally, have YOU done your OWN title search?

I always do my own.

Trust, but verify covertly.

In other words, when MY money (or my clients' money) is on the table, I always go one step more in doing my due diligence.

 

[sariejack]

Hi army_judge--

Thanks for responding. To answer your questions:

Realtor did title search and found that the deed to the house has several people listed:
50% of property to Susan, who passed in 2006
remaining 50% of property to Susan's 4 children

1 of Susan's children is the one who engaged the realtor and has been trying to sell the home for over 3 years. Apparently he is the one who bought the home from his siblings though this was not recorded on the deed.

We haven't done our own title search as we just found all this out yesterday. Thought this was going to be a simple cash transaction. Ha!

 

[army judge]

Hi army_judge--

Thanks for responding. To answer your questions:

Realtor did title search and found that the deed to the house has several people listed:
50% of property to Susan, who passed in 2006
remaining 50% of property to Susan's 4 children

1 of Susan's children is the one who engaged the realtor and has been trying to sell the home for over 3 years. Apparently he is the one who bought the home from his siblings though this was not recorded on the deed.

We haven't done our own title search as we just found all this out yesterday. Thought this was going to be a simple cash transaction. Ha!

If I were YOU, I'd have walked away from this deal when the realtor disclosed the inconsistencies to me.
This isn't worth the trouble.
The only way this could happen is a quit claim deed.
Trust me, you don't even want to think about giving away real money on a quitclaim deed.
Run, don't walk, run away rapidly.

 

[sariejack]

That's what I suspected. Thankfully we haven't signed anything or put any money into the deal, so we can walk away. Or run.