Property sale

[LostinMe]

Is it possible for a person to become the owner of a home before signing a purchase agreement? I was doing some online reasearch earlier at a friends suggestion, and discovered that my soon to be ex took over as "Owner" of his house two weeks prior to signing a purchase/payment agreement. I got this information from a local registry of deeds web site. How is this possible?

 

[dee_dub]

Without knowing the exact details of the situation and how your state property registry operates, it is impossible to say how this happened. Generally it is possible to become the owner of a property before signing a purchase agreement - in some cases, you can become an owner without ever signing a purchase agreement (e.g. it could be gifted to you, you could inherit it, etc.) Also keep in mind that "owner" and "registered owner" are two entirely different concepts. How he became listed as owner on the registry is anyone's guess.

 

[LostinMe]

How would you become 'registered owner'? The info I found comes from our city's Assessing Office. I noticed one thing, on this report the seller is listed as the original owner of the home who passed away. On the purchas agreement the seller is the owner of the park where the home sits. I'm not sure if they bought the home from the widow or she gave it to them.

 

[dee_dub]

Give us the facts. Otherwise this is just guesswork.