Posted by Ben (NJ) on February 26, 2002 at 04:26:04:
of an attorney going into business with his clients, and also restrictions on taking contingency matters, why would the attorney even be interested? It sounds like he takes all the risk and
you get all the gain. You even want him to pay the back taxes? If the deal bombs, there are no proceeds
so he not only doesn’t get paid, he loses money. If the deal is profitable he gets no upside whatsoever, merely gets paid back his money and his fee. How can he resist this deal?
In Florida we have what is called “lands available for taxes”. These are properties that went to the auction block for non-payment of property taxes and no one bought them. Anyone at anytime can walk into the tax office and pay the back tax and some admin fees and in a couple of weeks you recieve a “title” to the land. This title is not sellable or insureable ( i.e. title insurance ) so, if you want to re-sell the property you must go thru an attorney to obtain a “quiet title” which you can present to a title co. My question is this, Can I offer these properties for sale, have the attorney pay the taxes and his fee for the quiet title, out of the proceeds and keep the balance in escrow until the quiet title is issued to the new owner. It sounds like it would but, I’m not sure if it legal.