Posts Tagged ‘From’

Investing in Tax Liens From Afar

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Lately I?ve been receiving messages from subscribers in other countries ? from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even from parts of Africa, asking if it is possible for them to invest in tax liens and tax deeds in the U.S. market. They want to know if they can actually do this from another country or in some cases from another continent. And the answer is yes you can, but there are some stipulations.First of all not every state has online auctions, only a few do. So you first have to find out which states have online auctions and determine where you will invest. Next you need to get the tax sale information, which is pretty easy to do and can be done from your computer. You will then need to register for the tax sale and make a deposit with the online auction company ? all this can be done online. If you are investing in tax liens you will need to fill out a W-8BEN form, which you can find online at www.IRS.gov. OK, now here comes the hard part ? you have to do your due diligence on the tax sale properties before you bid on them. Contrary to what you may have heard, there are risks involved in investing in tax lien certificates and tax deeds, and the way to avoid the risks is to do your due diligence on the properties. Some counties make this easy by providing a lot of information online. In some cases you can get assessment data, maps, and even pictures of the property. And there are other online tools that you can use to help you find out what the property is worth, like realtor.com and zillow.com. And you can check the state?s environmental web sites to find out about any environmental problems that may exist, and check with the municipality for any zoning requirements. All this can be done online and by phone. For tax liens it?s a pretty simple process, but for tax deeds it?s a little more involved. If you?re purchasing a tax deed, then you are actually buying the property and you?ll need to do a little more due diligence than you would for just purchasing a lien. You?ll need to do some type of title search to find out about liens or encumbrances that may exist on any properties that you want to bid on. And you?ll need to make sure that any lien-holders have been notified of the tax sale, otherwise they may have a legal right to purchase the property back from you if they claim that they were not properly notified of the sale.This may not be so easy to do from another country. This is where it would be real helpful to work with someone who could look at the property for you and do some of the research. It would be ideal if you had a relationship with a realtor or a title company in the area who could do some of the legwork for you in return for your business when you actually purchase some of these properties. After all you will need a title company to clear the title to each property and a realtor to sell or rent the properties for you once you own them.

Joanne Musa is a tax lien investing consultant who helps investors from all over the world to develop a profitable tax lien or tax deed portfolio. Joanne provides detailed information on how to start building your own profitable portfolio of tax lien certificates or tax deeds and video and audio training on the Members Area of TaxLienLady.com. Get a free 30-day trial to the Members Area of TaxLienLady.com at http://budurl.com/30daytrial.

Profiting From Tax Lien Certificate

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Tax lien auctions create Excess Funds – that you can get for yourself!These Proceeds comes from foreclosures.These foreclosure sales can come from a substitute trustee foreclosure, a foreclosure from a home owner assoc, or a result of a county tax auction. If someone goes to foreclosure on real estate, they are collecting on a debt secured by the property, and are making a person or entity to sell their jproperty to pay that amount owed.The problem that occurs for the bank is that the home can get more than the debt that needs to get paid. For instance, say a bank forecloses on Joe Smith because he is way behind on his payment. Let’s say he has a mortgage for $200 Grandtwo hundred thousand dollars} to the mortgage company and that his home sells as a result of a foreclosure for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Where does the $ end up?The mortgage company – or usually the substitute trustee for the mortgage co – pays out the debt owed on the real estate, with the tax folks – meaning any unpaid property taxes get paid before others in line. After that the bank has a right to what’s left. But, the bank can’t keep any overage. Assume there were $5K in lawyer costs due to the foreclosure sale, &) there were still owed taxes to be paid to the tune of five thousand dollars.What we have is:$250K sales price-Five thousand $ taken out to pay the municipality for taxes owed.-Five thousand $ paid to the law firm running the foreclosure sale.-$200,000 paid out to the bank.There now surplus of forty thousand dollars.Who gets that?Good question:, in a perfect world, surplus funds is due to the person who was foreclosed on. Here’s the problem – the municipality where the foreclosure was filed does not have the timed needed, skills, nor staff to track down the owner of those funds. Also the mortgage company doesn’t have a reason to track down person owed either – their only focus is to prove that they don’t keep any overage from the foreclosure sale. As a result the surplus goes into an earnest $ account, referenced to the file residing in the county clerk’s files. There it will remain for a long time:for up to a decade, before it is transferred to the states escrow coffer.Listen Up! During the time the cash is deposited in an escrow account for the municipality and then for the state, it is make interest. The county and then the State can claim that interest due to the fact that they’re keeping it for the past owner. At this point the obvious question that hits people is–Does the person due can just call the State or hit the internet and claim the funds from the state – or from the county if its been a short time – Right?No sir. Most times the cash is out of the rightful owner’s name at the point where it becomes a part of the states escrow acct. Its found by a case number that references the foreclosure case file in the municipalitys courthouse. So inquiries directed to the state commonly go unanswered or hit a dead end due to the fact that the cash is not in the name of the person due.Then What you just drive to the clerks office, find the case file, & show youre id, correct? Too Easy.. First, identifying the file has it’s own unqique prob’s, becaues the records aren’t called, ‘woohoo – look here records’. In the rare event you miraculously get to the storage place of the records, you have to look through the files (one at a time to ascertain which of the files thatwhich actually have surplus funds in them. But, once you identify one such file, you can locate much more using a easy method.Now Assume you locate the records, and see big amounts of dough for the rightful owners. Can you pull out that cash?Not without a special form. At this writing, many States don’t let you get over a tiny slice of the money when you identify it, specially if you attempt to make a deal with the person owed for identifiying the surplus. They often call these folks as ‘finders’, and limit their commission to 10-15%, and some States also require a Private Investigator’s license to be allowed. Then is the chance gone at this pt?Nope. BUT you can get those surplus in your name, regardless:nevermind the person who should have it implementing a program called the ‘Gold Mine’ – go get it at http://www.surplusfundsriches.comThere are 2 additional considerations here…1. It doesn’t make any difference how long the surplus has been in the earnest money acct. There is overage dating back 40 years plus yrs – so it doesnt make any difference if property values have lately dropped- pull cash from files that came about when the real estate market was on the rise.2. The System also can be used for tax auctions.Tax lien sales are just foreclosures that are due togovernment going after:attempting to collect taxes due on a home and are foreclosing to get that debt. The differences in tax auctions are:1. There is a chance for a much larger cash amount. chew on that. Unpaid taxes of $20K on a home that has other debt and sells for 300 grand. Yes ma’am!2. There might be a ‘redemption period’ of a (few years where you are required to sell the home back to the ex-owneryour buy price plus improvements. You could lease the house, put a small amount of update money into it, and make that $ back, betting the owner does not come back in the middle of the redemption time. That works cuz you will recoup what you have in it, if the owner does come back, and return the rent. However, the Gold Mine Program teaches you a much better way to benefit from sales from a tax auction. You will literally, using the ebook, let the home to be auctioned at a tax auction, and then claim the surplus funds due to the rightful owner Yourself! Seriously! We trust this program cuz we designed it. Its available at http://www.surplusfundsriches.com

Realtor since 1993
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Deed Flip Specialist
Foreclosure/Short Sale Specialist
Surplus Funds ‘Guru’