Self-Close vs Escrow Close (LA 1381)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to The Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I'm sitting in sunny Central Scottsdale, Arizona. Today, Jill and I talk about self close versus escrow close. Actually, a couple of days ago, Jill, we hit on this a little bit because of that title company question that, I think Thomas asked, but you know what? Let's take a question before we actually talk about it by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit:
Eraldo wrote, Hey guys. Before I joined Land Academy, I had a signed agreement to buy an infill lot. Before I knew about Land Academy pricing, I was buying it for $12,500 and selling it at full market value for $30,000. So here's the seller's story. Gloria is the owner/seller. The county shows her name, mailing address, and she's made a few payments of taxes. Oh my goodness. She's 30 years behind, but making payments on that. Okay. Since she didn't even know that she still owned it. That's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
You're usually good things, by the way.
Jill DeWit:
The story went on that her mom bought it back in around 1969, 1972, and then put it in Gloria's name who was about eight or 10. Nothing showed up. So the county says the documents before 1989 would need a physical search. Called the county and they searched and found nothing. Previously, the first search was in the 80s, wasn't right. The search, they did it again. They couldn't tell me how they put the property in her name. Isn't this shocking? Our records show it's owned by her, but we don't know how it got there. That's the craziest thing. She's getting the tax bills and she's been paying the current ones, but not the very, very old back ones. I gave him Gloria's mom's name and her maiden name, father's name, brother's name just in case, and still nothing. The title examiner at the tile insurance company couldn't find anything online or physically at the courthouse. So this is a first for me. I'm at a loss. What do you think can be done?
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, what do you think?
Jill DeWit:
What do you think, Steven?
Steven Jack Butala:
I'd run away.
Jill DeWit:
That's what I was going to say. Even typing this, typing this question to me and to us and the online community, it tells me he's got, okay, let's just say, if we're lucky, five hours into it, maybe more like 10 hours into it. At this point, I don't know what to say, other than I kind of would move on and I'm concerned. I'm concerned about somebody taking [inaudible 00:03:18] back.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the beginning that, he didn't price it right. Situations happen like this once in a while. If you're brand new at this, I'm trying to give you the real... how it really works in the real world. Once in a while, something like this happens. Most of the time, [inaudible 00:03:40] But once in a while you get a property where it's like, you know what? I can buy this thing for five grand and it's worth $500,000 if I solve these problems. That is in a situation where you figure it out. It might be even worth you to go to the courthouse, but if you've got a title examiner... Title examiners, if you've ever been in a county building, there's usually a big type of conference room, and there's 20 people sitting at the conference table.
None of them work for the same company. One works for First American, one works for a mom and pop title company, and they're all having a blast. They're laughing with each other and drinking coffee and asking each other questions and working together. Those people are title examiners and they know that county. They live there. If they're sitting there in the county building, they know where all the books are, the pages,