Stay in this business long enough and you will one day be able to say that there isn’t much that you haven’t seen. In fact, you may find that the time may come when you see much more than you wanted to see. On occasion, you may come across a property where the owner has completely left it only to have the mortgage company come and repossess it. For whatever the reason may be, you may find it difficult to buy the property when there really isn’t someone there to sell it to you. And then, of course, if this property is in or nearing foreclosure, then there are some additional things that will need to be done.
About the only way to stop the foreclosure is to bring it current. Then you have the ability to file a quiet title suit and clear up the title yourself. If you don't do that, you are sure to lose it to the foreclosure.
Filing a quiet suit involves writing a check and then waiting three or four months. The process basically works pretty much the same thing they would do in a foreclosure. They do a title search and they look for anybody and everybody they need to notify that they're quieting the title. Then they tell them and if they don't come forward, they will forever lose their interest in the property. Once a judge issues the order that the title has been quieted, it makes no difference what claim the previous owner had… it's over.
Something you better be careful of is to not go and make up payments on the property and bring it out of foreclosure unless it's got a lot of equity on in it. And also remember if you file a quiet title suit, somebody can always come and dispute it. So that money you put out is at risk to bring the property out of foreclosure… limited all be it, but it's at risk. You may also was to have a title company do a title search and see if they'll issue title insurance on the property for you. There is a chance that they will not especially if they think there is a risk of a dispute being filed.
Don’t rule out the option of trying to find the property owner. There are many services out there that specialize in locating people. You can also use a private investigator. In most cases, if you have the person’s name and last known address, they can eventually be located. For the most part, no one can hide forever.
For additional information on real estate investing and the hot foreclosure market, I recommend joining Ron LeGrand's Millionaire Maker Newsletter The newsletter itself is loaded with great tips and resources, and he's usually giving away something free like a CD or something that generally has a lot of great information on it.