To search for a title before a sale Tax Lien

When you attend a Tax Lien sale you are investing your hard earned money in a Lien against a property you do not own.

Obviously you do not want to do this without examining the underlying property, at least some 'doing a quick search of the preliminary.

Why not take a title company to do it for you. I do not believe in paying money for a service on a property that does not even know if I'll be able to buy the certificate for Tax Lien.

So the way to do this is to do it yourself.

Here's how:

1. Vai to the County Recorder / Clerk (called differently in many counties and states, but basically the official of the county, which keeps track of all real estate transactions, and where all deeds, mortgages, liens are being recorded ... ). Go to the "Owner / Dealer index.

Nowadays most of the counties have online services that often include the line grantor / Dealer Index. The Owner / Grantee index is a database of all real estate transactions. GRANTOR means that subsidies (= usually the seller) and grantee is defined as those receiving (= usually the buyer)

2. Once a licensor / licensee Index look for the name of the person holding the property. Note, these indexes are organized by book and page, and by name and often by legal description. If you have one of these you can search the index and all documents relating to that name / description will be legal.

3. Now you just need to go document by document to look at everything related to this property. What to look out for:

one. IRS Tax Liens

b. Bankruptcies

c. Environmental claims.

d. Mortgages (if you are aiming to own the property it is unlikely that the bank holds the mortgage will let the property go for taxes and instead redeem the property prior to the repayment term to expire)

4. Do this for all the properties you are interested in and you will have a good image of any existing hidden problems. Of course where there is a problem, cross this property from your list and go to the next.

5. Once you're used to doing this, as a preliminary title search should only take approx. From 5 to 10 minutes for the property ....