My Dad died almost 3 years ago this January and did not have any type of will and/or living trust. My father had 2 properties in Arizona (My sister and I live in California about 4 hours away).
One property is a good location, but the mobile home on the property is a lost cause and will need to be leveled. The second property is in a bad neighborhood and was in even worse shape. Also, we found out weeks after he passed that there were squatters in the second house. But since my sister and I did not have any deed to the home, we had no rights to have them evicted.
The probate process took over a year and once the deeds were transferred into our names we slowly learned that the properties were near a combined $20,000 in back taxes. My sister and I both are unable to come up with this type of money to get current.
After few spaced out trips to the properties we attempted to begin the eviction process on the smaller, not so nice home (last we knew this house was valued around 30k). However, during the last visit around early October the house was completely gone. Nothing but a lot. We didn't receive any notification that the house would be torn down. A neighbor shared that the city tore it down. Does this mean the city/state took ownership? Now what? Who do we contact and is this legal without notification?
With regards to the nicer location property last we know it's still standing. It is our understanding that the lot's valued around $90,000 and could be more with a good house on it. But we are still behind on the taxes. We would love to make this an income property. But know we need to completely tear down and rebuild. What is the best way to not have this property not be a complete lost cause?
Submitted December 19, 2018 at 01:05AM by nlavin https://ift.tt/2R14dGk