Why That Record Decides the Sale
Where a mortgage is behind, a sale has to satisfy or resolve it, and the statutory duties under section 1308 attach specifically to the first lien mortgage holder rather than to whoever happens to be collecting payments.
Those are two different parties surprisingly often. A buyer who has not established which is which is a buyer who has not worked out what closing actually requires. The full position is on our page covering the inspection and the registry.
What Does a Good Answer Sound Like?
The Buyer Who Has Checked
Their timetable is longer and it is real. They will tell you which steps take time and why, and they will usually suggest you speak to a New York lawyer, because a sale that resolves a delinquent loan cleanly benefits them as much as you.
Their offer accounts for the process rather than assuming it away, so it holds.
The Buyer Promising to Close in Ten Days
On a property with a current loan or none, plausible. On one where a mortgage is behind, it is a promise about somebody else's institution.
The test: ask what happens to their date if the payoff figure takes three weeks. A buyer who has done this before has an answer and a fallback. One who has not treats the question as pessimism.
The Buyer Who Offers to Deal With the Servicer
Decline while keeping the buyer. The relationship under section 1308 runs between the first lien holder and the borrower, and a purchaser inserting itself is influencing the value of the thing it is negotiating to buy.
The distinction: a buyer telling you what the recorded documents show is useful. A buyer speaking to your servicer about your account is not theirs to do, and most servicers will not permit it anyway without authority you should not be granting.
The Buyer Who Has Not Asked About the Door
Quick and diagnostic. A notice posted under section 1308(3) is a fact about the property's status that changes a buyer's timetable and their risk.
The question that reveals them: ask whether they want to know if anything has been posted on the house. A buyer who works in this market asks it themselves, early, without prompting.
Contract Assigners
Some parties sign to buy and sell the contract on before closing. On a property where inspections are occurring every 25 to 35 days and a determination may be hardening, that delay is not neutral, and the eventual purchaser inherits a position they were not part of assessing.
The question that catches it: which entity will appear on the deed. A principal buyer gives you a name you can search in the same county records.
The Checks Worth Making Yourself
The county clerk's records. What is recorded against the property, and whether anything was ever discharged. Public, and the single most useful search available to you.
Your last mortgage statement. For the servicer, which may not be the first lien holder.
The front door. For anything posted.
An agent with no interest in the outcome. For what the repaired house is worth on your actual street.
Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts, and we do not contact your servicer. Ask us what is recorded against the property and the answer should be specific.
We are frequently not the right answer. Across North Buffalo, Elmwood and much of the first ring, where the loan is current and the frame survived, repairing or a conventional sale will beat us outright. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.
Questions About Buyers
One Offer Is Far Above the Others.
Ask each what they assumed about the loan and the closing timetable. On a delinquent file the highest offer is frequently the one that has not looked.
A Buyer Wants Authority to Speak to My Lender.
Do not grant it. Take any request like that to a New York lawyer before signing anything.
Does a Buyer Need a Licence?
Not to buy as a principal and take title. Marketing property on behalf of others requires a New York real estate licence, and the state lookup is free.