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Real Estate Matters: Financial Questions and Answers - August 8, 2009
By Ilyce Glink
Q: I entered into an agreement with an investor/Realtor in 2006 where he was supposed to purchase my home and pay off my loan if he was unable to sell my home in 12 months. It has been three years, and he hasn't sold my home. Not only that, this person has also placed the title of my home in his name and left the mortgage in my name. What can I do?
A: Honestly, I can't believe it has taken you three years to reach out and ask for help. The moment the so-called investor/Realtor asked you to put the title to the property in his name but keep the mortgage in yours, you should have refused and immediately picked up the phone to call the police or the FBI.
What I'm trying to say is you've been scammed. What you describe is a classic mortgage fraud scenario.
Contact an attorney immediately to see where you are with this, if the investor/Realtor has taken out another loan for the property, and if you can resolve the situation or need to take legal action.
Q: I recently filed for bankruptcy. The sheriff has seized my property. Do I still have mineral rights to the property?
A: My sense is that when you lose your property -- and I'm inferring from your e-mail that you lost your "property" as a result of a foreclosure, non-payment of real estate taxes, or other legal issues that allowed the sheriff to seized it -- you also lose all mineral rights to it, just as you would lose any other rights, such as riparian, water, air and others.
Bankruptcy alone wouldn't necessarily cause you to lose your property, especially if you filed for a reorganization rather than for a liquidation. But if the sheriff has seized your property for the many reasons that we are all reading about in the news these days, then you would lose all rights to the property.
You would want to talk to a real estate attorney about your specific situation, but in general, the sale of a property includes all rights that go with that property. In some cases, owners of properties have withheld selling mineral rights or other rights that would typically go along with the property.
If you gave someone a mortgage to your property and included all rights to the property, including the mineral rights, the lender has the right to foreclose on that property and thereafter sell off the property with the mineral rights.
Please consult with a real estate attorney for more details.
Q: In a recent column, you discussed the case of an 84-year old mother who had deeded her property to her granddaughter and older sister. The question posed was whether the mother was of sound mind.
While abuse and duress certainly seem to be prevalent in these money-hungry days, perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps the mother is leaving property to those who treat her best, namely, in this case, the granddaughter and the older sister.
People expect to automatically inherit on the basis of relation, but the mother may not like how she has been treated by the twin sisters and has chosen to leave them nothing.
A: You are right, of course. It's entirely possible that the daughter who wrote to me has done something really awful to her mother and has been cut out of the will. And I said as much in the first sentence of the answer.
But I also wanted to raise the possibility of elder abuse because it is such a heinous crime and because it goes on every day.
I think part of my job is exploring both sides of an issue and providing a takeaway to help the letter writer. In this case, I recommended that my correspondent discuss the issue with her mother so that she can reach "closure" and not spend the rest of her life wondering what really happened.
But if in that conversation it appears to her that her mother is confused and doesn't understand what has happened, there may be something worth pursuing with an elder law attorney.
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Ilyce R. Glink's latest ebooks are "Save Your House From Foreclosure" and "The Clutter Collector: How to Get Rid of Clutter Everywhere In Your House," which are available at her Web site, www.thinkglink.com. If you have questions, you can call her radio show toll-free (800-972-8255) any Sunday, from 11 am-1 pm EST. You can also write to Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, IL 60022
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