If a tax lien company has a tax certificate on some property how do we buy it?
Mar 26, 2009 in
Questions And Answers
I asked this in real estate also…but we are interested in buying some property in Oklahoma, but couldn't locate the owner…after some digging we found that they owe 4 years of back taxes on the place. If we want to purchase it do we have to buy the certificate from the tax lien company or speak with the owner? Any help would be great!! Thanks!
The thing that is making this so difficult is that I cannot track down the owner, all the numbers I have found so far are disconnected…I'm really not sure what else to do.
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One comment
tax-attorney-colorado on March 26, 2009 at 12:03 pm
There is a difference between federal tax liens and state tax liens. If you are talking about state tax liens, then yes, the local tax assessor can tell you exactly what you need to do to buy the property. You can view an article that I wrote on this topic here: http://www.mechanicsofmoney.com/investments/alternative-invesments-tax-lien-certificates/.
You MUST check to see if the IRS also has a filed or unfiled federal tax lien. Many of my clients purchase properties via state tax lien sales only to find that the property is also subject to a filed or unfiled federal tax lien. The rules on removing federal tax liens just changed a couple of weeks ago. You can view an article that I wrote on this topic here: http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/2007/01/new-irs-tax-lien-regulations-issued.html.
A tax attorney in Oklahoma should easily be able to address your questions better (and many would probably do so for free — assuming that they work for medium or smaller firms). If the property is desirable, you may want to hire an attorney (many states permit courthouse door sales, a process that puts locals in a position to snap up a property before an absentee or less-knowledgeable buyer knows what happened).
I hope that helps.
Kreig Mitchell
http://www.irstaxtrouble.com
http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/blog.htm
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