The couple next to my parents recently put a "for sale by owner" sign on their lawn. I have always loved this house because it has a huge yard so we began to look into it. I looked on ACRIS through the Dept of Buildings website and saw that the last deed on record was not in this guy's name. When I asked him who the LLC named on last recorded deed was, the neighbor told me this was who he bought the property from. When I looked further into it on ACRIS, I saw that in 2002, he did buy it from this LLC, but then it seems that, between 2002 and 2006, the property was in contract to be sold, then went into foreclosure, went to JP Morgan Chase and then back to this LLC through the last recorded deed. I spoke to a real estate lawyer at a title company where I used to work and he told me to stay far away from the situation, but part of my job there was tracking down unrecorded land documents, so I know it happens that sometimes these things don't get recorded so I don't want to walk away without knowing whats going on.
I searched the LLC online and came up with nothing except a disconnected phone number. The mailing address on the Dept of Finance website for this LLC is the address of the property for sale, which doesn't make sense to me. When I did a reverse look up on the number I found for Galit Network, LLC, it was listed as United Homes, but their website, Unitedny.com, doesn't exist anymore and their numbers are all disconnected. Could this guy possibly no longer own the property and not even know it?? I really want to do something about getting this property if possible. Thank you for any help you can offer.

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 Tags: Deed, scam, foreclosure, ACRIS

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   May 21, 2009

Around here, the County Clerk is the governmental agency that is in charge of recording deeds and ownership records. I have also seen a few instances where it was simply recorded incorrectly by the County Clerk's office, or more often, they can't record the transfer because there was a mistake made by the closing agent at the time of the last transfer. If possible, you might check with either, or both, the county clerk's office and the closing agent of the last transfer. I would start with the county clerk's office, and they may be able to tell you why it wasn't recorded properly, which assumes that something crooked hasn't happened. If something shady is going on, I would have to agree with the lawyer you spoke to, and stay away from this one.

Best of luck.