Home, Land, Property Buying and Selling - Bankrupcy sale comes to an and, 168 days later

Well, the land deal (from previous posts in legal and here) is done. For a deal that was supposed to take less than 30 days, I am glad it only took 6 months! At this point I am wondering if I should go after the interest of the deposit we had put down (15K) or whether I should just say we got the property, paid less interest than we would had we actually owned the property (because it was only on the 15K and not the full value) and got the land at the contract price.

The timeline is as follows:

Late September, “win” an auction to purchase several acres of land. It is a bankruptcy and we are obligated to close within 30 days or are at the mercy of the Trustee.

For the next 3 weeks, we are told that the attorney for the Trustee is negotiating a deal with the creditors, the same attorney is telling the Trustee that they are having an accountant calculate capital gains taxes (someone is lying).

Week 4, I get a call from the attorney for the Trustee asking for over 8% more than the bid. I contact the Trustee and he tells me he has signed the contract. I send a letter to the Trustee asking for clarification and to find out what is going on. The attorney for the Trustee contacts me (after a chew out session?) telling me they have concluded negotiations but have to get it approved by the judge (typical in such cases). They would not explain why they asked for the additional cash (something fishy?).

Week 10, the judge approves the sale, all over, right? Wrong. The order is entered and the deed is sent off to a second party (co-owner) to sign. I am told it should be ready to close in 2 weeks.

My attorney (who has been giving me advice, including reviewing correspondence from me, on how to go forward, but not actually getting involved because she says I am doing what needs to be done), asks if she should start the title search, I agree. The title search turns up a lien that is not covered by the bankruptcy. Note, it had turned up on the Trustee’s search as well, but was removed and appeared not to apply.

We inform the attorney for the Trustee that this lien is to be removed. We are told that because the land that the lien applies to was subdivided out (which was true), it did not apply to this land and therefore they had to do nothing.

I could not get a title insurance policy because of the lien, we informed them we would not close without a lien release on this land. The attorney for the Trustee fought, but lost and finally agreed to do it, even though she said it was a “no brainer” and a waste of time. I did not want this to bite me in the backside when we sold.

The “no brainer” took more than 8 weeks to resolve with the lender (better the seller than us), but was finally done. The lender needed a bunch of paperwork to ensure they were not releasing the lien on the applicable property. It was a mess.

The attorney for the other party to sign the deed “lost his client” and could not get it signed. He agreed to sign in her stead, but the judge ordered a hearing. Once the hearing was ordered, the attorney “found” his client and got the signature (13 weeks after initial attempts were made).

Other various bits of documentation resulted in another 2 week delay (nothing really). When we went to record, we discovered that the notary had not put her ID number on the deed. Thankfully they were able to reach her and get it, otherwise we would have had to recluse. IT IS DONE!

I wonder if they really wanted me to drop out because they had another buyer, but could not break my contract. This whole fiasco smelled, but I won!

Welcome to the world of attorneys.................

PITA.... glad it worked out finally. Bankruptcy sales/Tax auctions make me more than a tad nervous - and your story/experience is exactly why.