How do you go about checking whether someone has clean title to a home? Secretary of State? DMV?
We took ownership of a park in southern Michigan in early 2019. We’ve had a few problem tenants we’ve had to evict. All the tenants own their own homes. In the past we’ve had problems with tenants “owning” their home, without clean title. Often times they inherited it. Since we want to keep this one in the park, we’re gonna make an offer to buy it. But, before we do that we want to make sure the current problem tenant actually owns the home.
In most cases the dmv will not release any info to you. If the tenant is the true owner they can get a title. If not who knows who owns it, how much in back taxes are owed, if there’s a bank lien against it. If they can’t produce a clean title I’d discount it significantly and put it through the abandoned property process after they leave to get a clean title.
I just ask the resident to show me their title. If they claim they have the title registered in their name but lost it, I tell them they need to go down to the secretary of state and file a request for a replacement title.
The only way to know for sure that they have clean title is to to check with the secretary of state. Even if the resident shows you a clean title, there’s always a tiny chance of fraud if you haven’t also checked with the Secretary of State, but personally this risk doesn’t bother me much.
Unless you have a high end park, there’s a good chance the resident doesn’t have title registered in their name. Most homes have been sold multiple times between private parties, and the current occupant may not have filed the paperwork properly to transfer ownership officially.