Cleaning Up Title - Wrong Thing Recorded
I have been evaluating several different property comp/profile systems.
I'll typicall use my house or my mom's house as I know what should be on record.
Long story short, due to a typo in the PIN / APN there are:
2- quit claim deeds
2- warrenty deeds
2- mortgages
and a couple mortgage assignments recorded on the PIN that is my mom's home.
The recorder's office (macomb county MI) has been WORTHLESS.
I was able to contact one of the banks but not the other.
I don't have any power to compel the parties to these docs to file corrected documments, but I was thinking that the County Recorder would.
Any hints?
I am planing to be back there for the 4th, so maybe showing up in person would help.
if title companies were involved in recording these instruments then bring up to their attention to correct the mistakes since they are the ones that are insuring the title. if title wasnt insured and the lenders wont help then the only other remedy is to go to court to clean up the title.[ Edited by lp1 on Date 06/24/2004 ]
I was afraid that it might come to lawyer & court.
As far as the mortgages go if only one is valid, find out who the lender on the one that is invalid. Call them and request a release of lien, if they don't record it than you can. That will take care of your mortgages. For the quit claim deed and the warranty deed the one the were recorded last should be valid a the old ones should not bother you. Because whoever is one the first documents had to sign the new docs.
Hope this helps. I work for a title company and that's my job to clear title.
Wendi
I'll try some more. Rather frustrating.
I'm still it's sure it isn't a scam.
There was a "Law & Order" episode on this. Find an older person that owns free & clear, "fake" a sales, and then a refi. Take money and run.
That's the part that concerned my,
Here's the issue, ma and pa built the house in the early 50s and have owned it free and clear since the mid-50s (there was a period in the 70s when the family building business cross-colateralized the family homes for a large condo project, but that has been reconveyed)
The docs I question have been in favor or benefit of people TOTALLY unrelated.
e.g. in 12/03 a 100K mortgage with Jane Doe (not mom) as the borrower and a coressponding grant deed were recorded.
All of my "questionable" docs are of this nature, not the situation you described.
The county said they use a Granter/Grantee system and index off the legal description. I asked how they did that, and after thinking for a moment, she said "Oh yeah, via the PIN". WHich explains why they are showing on the PIN, but not in her name.
suffice it to say, when I did a prelim title report, it showed the mortgages as outstanding.
This would be a major hassle if this was discovered after her death, and not before when she could assist w/ the paper trail.
Thanks.
Some additional comments and questions:
You stated, "The county said they use a Granter/Grantee system and index off the legal description. I asked how they did that, and after thinking for a moment, she said "Oh yeah, via the PIN". WHich explains why they are showing on the PIN, but not in her name.
suffice it to say, when I did a prelim title report, it showed the mortgages as outstanding. "
The Recorder uses Grantee/Grantor - If this is true, why use an index? The Grantee/Grantor are the index. Are you mixing a Recorder's office with a Title Company's office? Title Company's do use legal addresses/Tax info as the index.
The Tax ID number (APN/PIN) IS NOT the legal address. They can be used together, but are separate items. All Real Estate Transactions must use a unique address to identify the property. The legal address (not street) is the most often used.
This still leaves the documents that have incorrect Tax ID numbers. The creators of these documents must have used the wrong numbers. Is this correct? If so, they must correct them or they would be liable for damages suffered. If the wrong numbering system is used, how do lenders, trustee, owners ever pay off what they owe?
They use the legal description for recording/ID.
the PIN is effectively a numeric represent ation of the legal description so if the entered
starting a monument located at blah and 34' west blh blah, that not something that can be indexed. so the deed recorder indeed uses the PIN for indexing/recording purposes.
The mtg broker never return calls, the one bank has tried to help as that mortgage was refi'ed and release of lein
was recorded using grantor/grantee and not PIN, so it was recorded on the correct property since name and not pin were use.
the the mort on mom's is still in place.
I talked to the DA, AG, State Police, recorder supervisor all said they can't do anything.
you have to contact the originaters of the documents., which other than ohio savings have been silent in returing calls.
The final suggestion was hire a lawyer.
My think is, perhaps a small claims suit, but 9 of 10 small claim courts don't alow a suit for specific performance.
I was think get a moneytary award to finance the lawyer.
thanks for the post.
Chet,
What you want is called a slander of title suit. If you can show that you made a good-faith effort to contact these people and they did not correct the matter you can sue them for slandering your title. The Attnys fees for the suit are usually assessed against the slanderer-- occasionally with penalties, especially if they have been un-cooperative in removing their slander.