(no subject)
Some of you may remember my husband and I were working on purchasing a four acre piece of land that has a radio/microwave/whatever kind of tower on it. The tower is no longer operational and basically it's a 260 foot tall hunk of scrap metal on halfway decent farmland that is right across the road from our house.
Anyway...
We're still trying to buy it but omg there are issues. I'll try to sum them up.
-Tower is being sold by a company called Tower Acquisitions, LLC.
-They want to "sell" it to us via a quit claim deed. They claim there are no liens or encumbrances on the property.
-We did our own title search.
-There's a $670,000.00 mortgage with Bank of America still outstanding that was initiated March 2002 and was part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005. However, the mortgage was never officially discharged and is still open.
-Taxes are current.
-There is a right-of-way easement still open for Ohio Telephone and Telegraph
Obviously the biggest issue is that mortgage. Now, I might be crazy, but I didn't think you could transfer a mortgage simply by buying and selling a property. The mortgage is always between the issuing bank and the party who took it out unless paperwork is done that transfers the mortgage itself, correct?
However, husband is of the belief that even if Bank of America doesn't come after us for the money itself, they could show up on our doorstep and be all like, "Hey man, where's our tower?" Which... you know... could be awkward. Especially if we'd had it demolished. Even then, though... there's not $670,000.00 worth of scrap in that thing. Not even close. Maybe five thousand. And we'd still be incurring the expense of demolition.
Our realtor is saying "Get Bank of America to release the lien and put it in writing." So I called them, and started that whole process... but in all honesty I don't know if they would do it for me. I mean, who am I? I'm nobody right now. I don't own the property; I have no rights of interest to it at all at this point.
What should be happening is Tower Acquisitions needs to get the title cleaned up before they try to sell the damn thing. But no, they don't want that. They want a quick and dirty deal where they just sign over their supposed "rights" to us under a quit claim deed and wash their hands of the whole thing. They get really defensive if my husband or I bring any of this up. "Well we bought it like this," the guy told my husband. "If it was good enough for us and we're not worried, you shouldn't be either."
Yeah, that's professional.
Our lawyer advised us to create an LLC of our own and use that to buy the tower. "Okay," we say. "So that would guarantee we wouldn't be liable for anything outside of the $20,000 we're paying for this, right? Even if worst case scenerio happens and Bank of America shows back up after ten years and wants their shit?"
"Well," the lawyer says, "It would help, but there's never any guarantees."
Good lord... it shouldn't be this difficult! I just... I don't know what to do at this point. I mean it's not like they'll be able to sell it to anyone else except maybe someone like themselves who will just unload it and not actually want to keep it. We do really want it, because we've farmed that ground for over 20 years now and it's so close to home. If it was just the land, there would be no issues. But that stupid hunk of junk on it is just screwing everything up. :(
Sorry, just had to vent a little...
Anyway...
We're still trying to buy it but omg there are issues. I'll try to sum them up.
-Tower is being sold by a company called Tower Acquisitions, LLC.
-They want to "sell" it to us via a quit claim deed. They claim there are no liens or encumbrances on the property.
-We did our own title search.
-There's a $670,000.00 mortgage with Bank of America still outstanding that was initiated March 2002 and was part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005. However, the mortgage was never officially discharged and is still open.
-Taxes are current.
-There is a right-of-way easement still open for Ohio Telephone and Telegraph
Obviously the biggest issue is that mortgage. Now, I might be crazy, but I didn't think you could transfer a mortgage simply by buying and selling a property. The mortgage is always between the issuing bank and the party who took it out unless paperwork is done that transfers the mortgage itself, correct?
However, husband is of the belief that even if Bank of America doesn't come after us for the money itself, they could show up on our doorstep and be all like, "Hey man, where's our tower?" Which... you know... could be awkward. Especially if we'd had it demolished. Even then, though... there's not $670,000.00 worth of scrap in that thing. Not even close. Maybe five thousand. And we'd still be incurring the expense of demolition.
Our realtor is saying "Get Bank of America to release the lien and put it in writing." So I called them, and started that whole process... but in all honesty I don't know if they would do it for me. I mean, who am I? I'm nobody right now. I don't own the property; I have no rights of interest to it at all at this point.
What should be happening is Tower Acquisitions needs to get the title cleaned up before they try to sell the damn thing. But no, they don't want that. They want a quick and dirty deal where they just sign over their supposed "rights" to us under a quit claim deed and wash their hands of the whole thing. They get really defensive if my husband or I bring any of this up. "Well we bought it like this," the guy told my husband. "If it was good enough for us and we're not worried, you shouldn't be either."
Yeah, that's professional.
Our lawyer advised us to create an LLC of our own and use that to buy the tower. "Okay," we say. "So that would guarantee we wouldn't be liable for anything outside of the $20,000 we're paying for this, right? Even if worst case scenerio happens and Bank of America shows back up after ten years and wants their shit?"
"Well," the lawyer says, "It would help, but there's never any guarantees."
Good lord... it shouldn't be this difficult! I just... I don't know what to do at this point. I mean it's not like they'll be able to sell it to anyone else except maybe someone like themselves who will just unload it and not actually want to keep it. We do really want it, because we've farmed that ground for over 20 years now and it's so close to home. If it was just the land, there would be no issues. But that stupid hunk of junk on it is just screwing everything up. :(
Sorry, just had to vent a little...