Probate Data and Property Lookups | Estate Professionals Mastermind Podcast 67 | Probate Coaching

This week’s training covered a ton of great topics with a heavy focus on skiptracing probate data and doing property lookups. Bill Gross and Probate Mastery students discuss how to find missing heirs for vacant property leads with a deceased owner. The group shares tips for probate real estate data production, using things like property lookups, forwarding addresses, and phone number lookups for probate court records. Bill Gross breaks down 4 different types of probate attorneys you can network with and how administration vs. litigation differ.  Other topics include how to approach probate property with a reverse mortgage, transferring title after death, and handling probate objections about commission.

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Episode #67

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Episode Segments for Probate Data and Property Lookups:

Resources for this Real Estate Coaching Session:

• FREE TRAINING: Probate Fast Track
• Take Chad’s Probate Course and get Certified in Probate Real Estate
• Facebook Group: Estate Professionals Mastermind Group
• Probate Mastery Alumni Group (For students of the Probate Mastery Course): Probate Mastery Alumni Group 
• Probate and Pre-Probate list providers
• Try Propstream Free
• Book a marketing strategy consultation
• Book a coaching session with Bill Gross
• Try All The Leads automated Probate Leads & Marketing System

1. Recent content:
   1. Episode 65 Live Real Estate Coaching: Probate Leads and Transactions with Bill Gross (probatemastery.com)
   2. Probate Real Estate Role Play☑️Probate Cold Calling Objections: We’re getting so many letters and calls from other agents and investors!
2. Bill Gross’s Website and Lead Vendors
3. Realist for property lookup (requires MLS access): https://prd.realist.com/
4. Nina’s recommendation for skiptracing: TruePeopleSearch.com
5. Reverse mortgage and probate real estate: Help heirs with Mom’s house (probatemastery.com)
6. ISA and voicemail courier service for probate calling: https://voicelogic.com/probatemastery/
7. Bill Gross’ interview with North Carolina probate attorney Jason Walls: https://youtu.be/DpilyhsC7aY

Probate Data and Property Lookups: Weekly Probate Training hosted by Bill Gross | Estate Professionals Mastermind Episode 67

Different Types of Probate Attorneys: Administration vs. Litigation (Probate Attorneys) [00:00:00] 

Hey, good afternoon. This is bill gross. I am the host today for our weekly probate mastery community call. We get together every Tuesday, even those that come after our holiday, Tuesdays at noon, Pacific time, 3:00 PM Eastern time, and they’re recorded and shortly posted on YouTube and then that’s pretty editable. And so we’re here to talk about all things, probate, real estate. I’ll share with you for those who don’t know me. I took Chad’s probate mastery program three years. And two months ago. I’ve been a real estate awhile, but I had to really realize from scratch in production. I had no listings of leads, no buyers, nothing. And really within first year create a great business.

I mean, a lot of my last couple of years continues and you have a nice pipeline of business right now. And so in my, all my lead generation is in the probate space. I took Chad’s program and its prior format live a couple of times then I took it online as well. Probably mastery and I’m often asked what is the best coaching program for people to get in the business.

I tell them that one, it may not get you certified in your state. I’m in California. There’s another program. They may go through the details of California. But in terms of learning the come from the value proposition you need to create to be successful in real estate, there’s nothing better than Probate mastery.

I participate because I need to keep my head in the game and I need to connect, I think, in real estate, whether you’re an investor or a real estate agent, it’s important to connect with people we’re in the meet, the people business. And so I come on this call weekly and then she has asked me to help co-host her for him.

This would be one of those times. And so that the format sometimes. Guests that I’ll interview. Other times it’ll just be questioned. Answered is meant to be a resource for those of you who are building your probably business we get on today and we can answer questions, you know, there’s a coaching program.

And then we have another program where we charge for one-on-one coaching, but this is free. If you get on, you want to participate, you can raise your hand. Like Joyce has in the zoom app where you could type a question in the chat box. I’ll watch for those questions there and try to get back to them. But it’s meant to have participated on the assumption.

We’re all trying to build our business. We want to work together and be successful. So just before I get to you, Joyce, and the first question I wanted to share kind of an overview of attorneys, one was a common question I get asked is how do I build a business where I can get referrals from attorneys who here besides me, is interested in building the referral business, maturities you to put yes, the chat box or raise your hand by far.

So one of the important things, I think. Okay, good. Robert says, yes. I see some hands raised. What important things to understand is your target or your prospect to understand how they work? I can go on for hours about this. My father was an attorney. He, therefore, had called eggs. The parties were attorneys.

I went to court with them as a kid. So I kind of grew up in that world a little bit. And I ended up attracting a lot of clients who were attorneys before I was looking for tryna referrals. When did share with you that I think there are five basic types of cherries? When you come across an attorney, you want to put them in one of five buckets and they all kind of get handled differently.

I’ll just list the five real quick and I’ll describe them. One is a general attorney two as a real estate or a transactional attorney three as a probate administrator four as a probate litigator, Siri, always wants to get in on this. And five is a state. So one’s a general tree. They’re an attorney.

They may have nothing to do with any of that. In general, I would say trees tend to be intelligent and go to law school. They passed the bar. They may or may not be good business people. They may or may not have that common sense, but they tend to be very intelligent. And I think also tend to be powerful.

People can refer business to. So we’ve come across. The attorney was negative probate, but all he does is DUI or divorce cases. And of course, divorce is another niche or a bankruptcy or whatever. You’ll find that people contact them for business and they will make referrals and those referrals stick so good to add your COI.

They’re also good to ask for referrals to the other types of trainees that you especially. Number one, number two, we’ll see attorneys in California. We have a subset of those laws and rules and we call those people ESCO officers. So when for California, if you hear the word real estate attorney, who is an escrow officer in California, we have we’ll see attorneys.

They handle big transactions like commercial transactions, but the routine residential transactions are handled by real estate attorneys in other states. Great sources of business. Great source of referrals for you to address a necessary vendor for you. Again, you would identify them separately from the other types of attorneys.

The third type is probate administration. This is an attorney who comes and goes to somebody who passes. It will hold their hand from the beginning through the end, typically they’ll file the probate paperwork, walk through the process, marshal the resources, and the assets, dispose of the assets, and handle it.

Now, this is distinctly different. Commonly from number four, probate litigation, certainly California, I’m sorry. Vine COI is center of influence everybody, you know, so if you’re Keller Williams, they call them the Mets sphere of influence center of influence what I would call the people that, you know, people, you know, like you and trust you and you like them, trust them and know them.

Okay. So go back. Public litigation is when those parties were different. And the problem is that litigation attorneys are a different animal, a different species almost more than a regular administrative return. Often they work at the same firm or they refer business back and forth to each other. But the type of who goes through litigation, the good ones only litigate.

The good litigators don’t do administration. That’s more paid work for one. It’s a different personality. And so you wanna make sure that you find the right niche. And then the fifth is estate planning. These are people who help you avoid probate. Commonly they’ll set up trusts, wills, and trusts. It’s all different.

And their goal is to help you avoid the program. And they’re all different. Now, some cross-over. Primarily estate planners, and litigation restoration. But what I find is that each one of each tree I meet fits one of those niches well. And they’re all good ones know that, and they do one and maybe refer business to somebody else in their firm for one of the others.

And so when people say, well, I need an attorney in Houston, Texas. Oh, I know Joe Smith. He’s our attorney. That’s like saying I need a realtor in Houston, Texas. She’s a realtor. She might only work with buyers. She did my only work with sellers. He or she might only do condoms. You might hear, that she may or may have done a condo.

It might be a new build or builder needs, whole different specialty commercial, industrial, just like realtors. Very, and the best have niches are great at their niche. Same with attorneys. So your goal should be to build a list of attorneys and identify their niche. And we’ll give him the chance you want to make a referral that they appreciate and results in business for you.

And what I mean by that, is my experience is just to pick a number randomly. If you take a probate case and take it to a probate litigator, they’re not interested. And too many times they’ll just tell the customer, yeah, I need a $20,000 retainer. I can help you. And the customer just disappears. I feel.

They’ll go to somebody else. If you follow up, they’ll say, oh, I called the attorney. He wasn’t helpful at all because I turned, it does litigation. Doesn’t do probate administration. So you gotta make the right connection for your customer. The right connection with the attorney in my experience put them together in the old days, and walk them by the hand, into the attorney’s office.

These days, they set up a zoom call and it follows up afterward with both parties. I felt with the attorney and the. To see if it’s a good fit. I feel like it’s dating and I’m a matchmaker. I never really did that. I’m just making this up, but I feel like that person and I want to follow up was a good match for you.

It’s a good match for you. If they’re both happy with money, if one’s not happy, you have a problem. And so those are the five types of attorneys and make sure you make a referral, you will get to the right type of attorney, and then you want to make sure that stiff. Sure. He says that’s helpful. That’s just because I said, Houston, Syria on the why?

So Houston, but need a pop up there. So maybe that’s why. Okay. Questions on that before we go forward. He is Winsted from orange county. Any questions on that? The different types of as many other types of attorneys and that’s just an overview, but does that help a little bit, seeing this discussion is several chap chat rooms and we’ll make sure to be as pre.

This group is a great source for referrals. I have probate, a group on Facebook called probate experts, trying to make, try to build a referral network there. And my goal is to build my team. We’ll see professionals nationally but making those referrals is important that you get the right person and then do it in the right way.

Okay. That’s the question on that. But I do see Joyce’s hand up before your hand gets worried, not a choice. I’ll call on you. How are you doing it? How can we help you today?

Vacant property with deceased owner: How to find missing heirs (Skiptracing) [00:08:32]

Hi, bill. I am hoping that you can tell me which direction to go. I have a house that has been vacant for months. The person passed away. The neighbors tell me. And I went on realists to see if I could find out any information and it does give the owner’s name and information, but his heirs are according to the neighbor are in Oregon.

Is there any, I don’t have any idea whether it’s a probate case or anything. Is there any way to, find the errors? Sure. So, and Joyce, where are you located again? And the orange county, California though. See, it’s where I grew up. So, and for those who didn’t follow that, so Joyce is a real estate agent.

And she finds a vacant property and she looked it up in a service called realists. So when you’re a real estate agent, you plugged the MLS. And one of the services that come with that as a package is a database of public record data called realists, R E a L S T great source under utilized for research.

So she goes on there and finds out the name of the owner and the errors. So, you know, there are a couple of steps you can take. Because of the mail, if the mail is to the property address in the old days, that’s where the bills with nowadays with an online pupil can go online and have the bill either settle electronically and sell it that way or is paperless.

So there will be no paper delivered to the house. So if that happens, then we no longer have the ability just to track information of where the bill gets mail, but you could start with that. I would mail it to the house. Hey, I see the property is vacant. The neighbors have told me that the David Smith, whatever his past, and I’m an agent in the area of specializing in private real estate.

I’d love to help you. I noticed they told me that you’re out of state. I’d love to help you get set to the property address. Number one, number two, you can just skip tracing and look at it that way. The other thing you always should do is check and see if probate are filed under that name. If the title’s held the name of the person.

And the only way that eventually, probably it has to be done at some point. So they have open probate. What did I sign tray? It can help you. I know a great probate attorney in orange county. You can help you effectively get the best outcome for your family. I’d love to make an order. Right. And if you don’t have a great probate attorney, Shadi Schaffer is an orange county.

I’m going to need her on my YouTube show. She’s fantastic. We’ll do a good job for you. And then door knocking the neighbors that might be neighbors, who knows? Oh yeah, they live in Portland or they live in this city and work in and track them down that way. So that’s where the money is finding that is number one, locating the errors and getting into conversation with them.

It’s not easy. There’s no guarantee the answer to it. There are copies of the track. Errors of the property are dated or a health issue. Then the county is going to get involved. So before it gets to that point, you might want to consider either contacting the county or doing some research through an eras research company.

Those costs a couple of hundred dollars, depending on the value of the house and how much money we’re spending in. But I think are on the right track. I would start with mail. Now we tie, skip, trace, and trace the address as best I could. Cause I help a little bit choice. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thanks so much to you.

Okay. Next up. Let’s see here. I see a hand up D Y 3 4 3 9. 

Property lookups, forwarding address, and phone number lookups for probate court records (Probate Data) [00:11:50]

Yeah, I’ve got a question by the way. How are you doing? Geat! This is David Young here in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Dave hot. Now you got to write a hotline, and live my questions here. Like just say you put in the probate list, where do we put in the probate list?

You got the mailing address of the executor, but the other address you click. It’s a, just a like a senior living address. Do you think that the house has already been sold? If it still has, if it has the senior living address on the probate papers? As far as the minute I made the property address, which service are you using?

Crude. Yeah, I’ll get this from the courthouse. So, this question is who’s going to the courthouse. How have you informed the county? I’m in a 40 county, but I’m putting the list from Cobb County and DeKalb county COVID cab. Okay. So two big counties for probate.

And the question is the address of the filing and the mailing address of the petitioner. Does that mean there’s no real estate is, you know, if it’s filled out by the attorney, it’s more likely for a correctly it’s filled up by a proper or pro se? The petitioner is not a trader on their own. They tend to be less accurate.

I don’t know that you would know. What you might do is take the name of the deceased and do public records, and search data you a real estate agent.

So you might want to pair up with a real estate agent in Atlanta, your, my wife, she’s an age. There you go. Paired up. You’d like to rotate nature so much. Right, but be careful CP with a real estate agent. I did the same thing. I’m married mine too. So you could have her use realists, the same form that Joyce had or the equivalent, but you can look up or whatever other public records you have, but you have the address, you know, who the Seton is.

You might look up and see if they own any property. And they’ll give you a clue if there’s a house in the status of it. I appreciate it. Sure. And again, the service you go to the county, I don’t necessarily know. There are different forms. So the data we usually buy is usually the mailing address of the petitioner or their last known address where the decedent died, but it may not correspond to the property they own, but if you put.

The name of the decedent and your research holdings in their name will pop up. Now, my pop-up is a trust. I told you, that’s not going to work out for you, but if it shows up as a property, odds are that’s, what’s being probated in California. What our petition is. You know, the dollar amount they expect to be probated on the initial form.

They’ll give you a clue if there’s a house involved in that. What can I do when you pull your data, do we have, I know it had the met an address, property entry. I do also have the phone number of the executive or the administrator. Well, it depends on what you’re getting for the data source.

So if you’re in your county, Like in LA county we get the person who filed a petition, but usually, a tray puts their number. They’re not the petitioners, sometimes the decedent’s name and number, and email are there. So it depends. So each county’s a little different and this petitioner fills out certain information, these others blank.

And then every data source is a little different as well. Some data sources we’ll get the data and then they’ll say, Upend the data and the ID and the petitioner’s phone number, email if it’s available. So again, depends on where you get your data from. If you get from the county, you only gonna get what’s there, but there are data sources like all the leads as an example, a little more expensive, but they’ll take the data and cross-reference and pull in the.

Yeah. The reason why I asked is that if I wanted to get some data, I would just enter it and see what the number was already there. After all, the contact data that I pull now I have all the numbers of it. Every number I call is a hundred percent accurate. Nice. Well then sounds like you found the keys to the castle, man.

Good luck with that. Please get to work. Call him, talk to me as a hundred percent accurate. Nice. Beautiful. Then you got the master list and that. Okay. So I know I hand up a Winston, but now your hands down. So you’ve answered your question or you had to leave or something happened. Well, I was going to say Joyce had a question and I have some information.

I don’t know if it’s still accurate, but it might help others. In the meeting today, but back in the old days, you could go to the local post office. Yeah. A vacant property goes to the local post office. It would cost a couple of bucks, but they would go ahead and give you the building address. And I don’t know if that’s true today.

Yeah. There’s a service, you know, when you do mass mail that you can have a kickback with those addresses, you know, I don’t know today or not. That’s a good one. So you can check your local postal. Also, Joyce, this is Nina. Sometimes if you look in the AMLs MLS is public record info. If it’s an absentee owner, sometimes it’ll show their actual address.

And I have also had luck with when I pull titles. Sometimes I’ll pull documents, deeds, whatever recordings, and it’ll sometimes show the absentee owner’s address in there. So that’s another sleuth way of a few sleuth-y ways of fine. Thank you, guys. I appreciate your help. And if you have the owners, if you have the owners full Maine and the city where they, if they previously lived there or this city that you think they may have lived in, you can even try Los Angeles.

There’s a service called true people, search.com and you can search for them there. It’s skip tracing where you do it yourself. Yeah. It’ll pull up multiple people with the same name, you know, multiple choices, you know, with the same name. And you’ve kind of got to look to see who it could be. But once you find the address associated with a record, it’s a pretty good chance.

That’s the right one. And then it’s going to have multiple phone numbers, multiple emails, and just like skip tracing. You gotta try all of them. That’s another way. Thank you. Very nice. Okay, good. It’s got a lot of ways to find that I get a public record. Data is really helpful. The real assistant source we use them.

We’ll ask. And then there’s your towel cup. He gives you an app. We can pull up public record data as well as the documents. And like Nina said, look on the doctorates for your stream mailing address. So often as contacted for there to get stuff. Who else has a question? Challenge. Problem. You don’t have a problem.

You’re not working hard enough. That’s.

Yeah, Jess Hilgenberg’s company.

Okay, Jess, go ahead. That’s a welcome to our call. Just where you, where are you calling from? I’m actually in Norco. So not far from you. Nice. Yeah, Riverside area. 

Probate appraisal and estate inventory process (Probate Timeline) [00:17:52]

I have a quick question on inventory and appraisal. So when the PR, when they’re going pro. And they’re doing the inventory and appraisal. How detailed does that have to be in regards to personal property?

I’ve read through the probate code and you can’t find much information. So consensus, I guess, are you talking about the inventory and prince report that the probate referee. Yeah. The one 60, how detailed do you get an unlisted property? The third is to evaluate. Yeah, as far as the personal property, do they have to list out personal property in the home?

If there’s like art collections or cars or things like that? Well, they’re supposed to be accurate. So here’s the challenge. Over a certain amount you know, probate has to be full probate versus limited probate. So once you get to a certain point, you know, you have to ask why you’re doing the why you doing the probate inventory and the pres report.

Let me back up a little bit just as asking about a person representing. That they’re not hiring returning, they’re doing on their own. And they’re in California before and beat you and 60 that you fill out to order a court-approved appraisal called a probate referee’s report in between appraisal report on that form, you identify the property that you want them to identify that they, you want them to evaluate.

So if it’s property, you put down the assessor’s parcel numbers and legal description and the address with those cars, and you list the cars. If there’s another material, you have to list it because they have to check. So, you know, for example, the reason why is more money coming in. The family gets a value, stepped up based on the date of death.

And so if the probate referee sizes were zero and you sell a collection for a hundred thousand dollars, they’re gonna pay taxes on a hundred thousand dollars. They wouldn’t have otherwise wanted to pay for it. So it’s to your advantage to identify as best you can to get an accurate appraisal as possible.

You don’t have to identify piles of junk or clothes, but things are collectible cars for sure. Because you have to change the title on them, guns for sure. Change the title on those. And then anything of value that the probate referee can establish value one. And that gets difficult because you know, you don’t want to bog down and spend time.

Comic book collection. I told him I’d be worth a couple of hundred bucks. The other thing to think about is what’s the purpose of it. If there are multiple errors in there, all objecting and fighting each other, they’re going to want to identify the value of it so that if the executor sells it, they’re responsible, and split it up.

It was just one error. Then it’s not such a big. But I would say just in general, the more accurate they can be the better. And there are services that I’ve used that come in and we’ll inventory everything. We’ll take pictures because they’re going to sit with a, sell it all. And so that becomes a tool to give the prep.

They probably referee the more information you have to give. Then the more responsible they are to establish a value. So I would definitely if there’s enough work because the administrative problem, that’s where you want to call it in the state service out of Norco. I use Grayson’s or franchise out there.

Yeah. That’s who I use. And they’re glad that you come in, take pictures, and give you a report that you can then take to the program for free. You don’t need to wait for that to sell it. You can sell your time. Do you want that? Just establishes the value. Perfect. Sure.

Okay. So, there you go. We have another problem solved today. Who else has a probate problem or business problem? So you’ve got some questions here and there. So Melanie is putting it out there for realtors. We have another tool called V mine. You can look up the address and get the owners. You’ll find that.

Absentee owners and contact information. Very good. She’s right. Remind R E M I N E is a tool it’s like a free piece of it. And then you can pay more for more information. That’s a great tool as well. And Terry Hunter asked the name of the service. Yes, Grayson’s others. This is for an estate service but they’ll come in and do an estate sale is G R a S O N.

Grayson’s a Capri. And I’ll put it in the chat box. I work with Kelly she’s in the south bay. There is a franchise, but she’ll, you’ll make the reductions to other places throughout the state. But Grayson’s Jerry son. As opposed to Nina, grace, and journey. Why son? As crazy as Nina has this not related, as far as I know, no, we’re not, but I can tell you every time I contact races, they say, Hey, no words are.

Yeah. Okay. So there you go. Repeat that. You’re welcome. Terry and Sherry Lynn, I see your hand up. How can we help you today?

How to approach probate leads with reverse mortgage and foreclosure situations (Probate Prospecting) [00:22:13]

So I came across a. Probate lead of petitioner filed. He, I mean, Houston and so the personal representative, I’m sorry, the decedent passed away. And I want to say November early part of November. And it was just filed. Just petition was just put in this Not inmate earlier in May, and I’m not sure if they’ve gotten their letters yet or not, but when I was researching the property, it’s a reverse mortgage deal.

And so I’m not sure in Texas, I’m assuming that the reverse mortgages are pretty consistent across the deal 180 days, and they’re ready to foreclose. And I’m not sure when that. I’m going through a lot of assumptions here. So that’s why I raised my hand. Cause I’d like to be confident in what I’m doing. That’s okay. So I was just wanting to clarify that 180 days started at the day of death, correct? No, when they file, not when they fall. So what happens is. The death circuit certificates now have the social security number on them. It used to not for security reasons, but now what happens is that number is frozen through the banking system.

So when the, when that’s filed, a notice has said to social security, and then their banks who subscribed that data and they’ll freeze bank accounts, including risk mortgages. And they’ll start their clock. At that time, it could start with the date of death, but I think they just, from a practical view, it started from the day they’re notified.

I was on one of the calls or maybe I was listening to a replay and Chad and his guests were talking about The sorry, I’m just having a hard time getting my thoughts together. They were talking about how funeral directors are required now to turn that information in, right. Like that huge database.

And so you wouldn’t even need the death certificate for that. I mean, that would already be in process before the death certificates were requested. Well, I mean these 10, 17, that’s part of the process, the desert, I think. I think the death certificate data is electronic. It gets filed with social security restoration, the attack how it happens and they’ll call it social screen ministration to say, Hey, I got a dead work for you.

It’s all done electronically. I think now that the banks get notified right away. So bank accounts get frozen and versus merged copies of that data and they start the clock. It used to be. That the reverse mortgage companies would work with families. My experience was as a listing agent, I called them up.

I showed the listing agreement, emailed MLS, and they would work with you because oftentimes families wait six months for whatever reason. Now my experience is they’re on the clock and they’re going to hit that notice of default, depending on your state, California filed us default six months, the day they sent a nice letter beforehand saying, well, if you have any questions or problems, please let us know.

And then in California, they transfer the loan to a different service or that service, or just a law firm that for. And they hit the 90-day thing and they hit the nose to trust yourself and they just raced to foreclose. And unfortunately, you either sell the property or stole them off.

I go to Texas, but that’s experiencing so, so in thinking about the family, right? I mean, I, who knows if they even know that mom and dad had a reverse mortgage or whatever. Right. So if they just filed and like, when I saw that theoretically, they know that I’m paying a mortgage. Yeah. Something’s going on.

I’ve not paid a mortgage. How do you assume that happens? Most people might the most. Okay. They look it up. The first thing they want to know is if the house I have is worth half a million dollars it’s free and clear, or does it have to be dollars and there’s a reverse mortgage on it for half of your dollars.

They, my experience is they all know that.

So not knowing the family or what their situation is or what they know. Right. How could I contact them? And how would you hold that conversation? Sure. I mean, even, would you even say, like, I happen to know that you have a reverse mortgage on this property? You know, how deep do you get into the conversation on what you know with them?

Sure. And show you your realtor investor. I’m a brand new realtor. I just got my license last week. Welcome to the team. And we’ll come to you with, thank you. I would say. That’s down in Houston, Texas. Very nice. Well welcome. Thank you. So, you know, full disclosure, I’m not calling petitioners today.

I built my business app where I’m working on attorneys and referrals and investors. I did call petitioners. I have talked to a lot of petitioners, normally they’re referred to me. So I’m coming in with a little bit of referral, a little gravitas, a little juice, right. But that said. If I were starting out, I would call it a petitioner.

I could talk to them. And if you discovered the property caused it, is it probate? Yes, it was on the public record. So I would just start with that is, you know, I’m probate will see agent specialists. I focus on helping families that are in probate, get through the process. And I notice that you follow the probates Clessie how can I help you and just follow the normal process.

But if you know that there’s a reverse mortgage, during the conversation, you might ask the question. I’m just curious. Are you aware? There’s a reverse mortgage. No, I’d look up the public records. It will show if there’s a lien or not and who they are. And usually you can tell it is a reverse mortgage from that.

And I bring that up and ask them, are they aware of the timing involved in this? And nobody knows the timing because unless you’re the lender, you don’t know your actual calendar, but we should assume as of the date of death, there’s a clock running for six months. I don’t know the foreclosure process in Texas.

I understand its fascia and company. So I’d imagine you gotta be really on the, on your ball to on the ball to move things forward. Now there are different possibilities, you know if there’s. There are ways that the family can take over the loan. In certain circumstances, I interviewed my program on Thursday, the same guy to chat with.

Head-on when there’s a process of it’s sold to the FHA and in that. So you have to learn those kinds of those rules that if applicable, but you know, before we go too far down that rabbit hole, I want to talk to them and put it where they are and see who. You know, where, what stage they’re in, and is their equity in the property because you have to see it as a reverse mortgage file.

And then assuming that the maximum is there still equity left. If there is you have a game, if there’s not, then this short sells there are other ways around it as well. But yeah, I’ve called and I would always refer to why notice in looking at the public records that I’m going to say, I know you have a reverse mortgage, but I would say, Hey, I, you know, I did look at the public record information.

That show there was a mortgage. In 2019 with, are you worried that as long as you presented, as you know, I see this in public records, it’s different than I’m a creepy realtor? Who’s stalking you right to I, yeah. That’s helpful. Thank you bill. Sure. My pleasure. Okay. Winston Covington, the host. I was just going to give you a Devin update and something similar as to the last collar, as far as what I’m working on, it’s the exception to the rule and what you were just talking about.

But I had a foreclosure referred to me that was a reverse mortgage. And as of next week, it’s been two years since the lady passed away and it took a lot of real. And it took a lot of follow-up and a lot of information, but we were able to negotiate an extension because it was down to the trustee sale time.

But at the time it was referred to me. I had like seven days, but it was a lot of work and a lot of evidence to back it up, they agreed to extend it out and they used it. What they call a COVID exemption to give me the foreclosure. So it can be done. It just takes a lot of work. I think it’s harder in orange county where you.

In LA county, I would say game extensions are almost a rule. If you ask the judge for it and the judge can absolutely prevent a judge and probably LA county can prevent foreclosure in orange county. The judge, the judges, I think are more by the book and we’ll say he had six months. Why should we bother the lender over?

County and obviously state, but thanks for sharing that. The rest of the story with this one. So appreciate that. Yeah, no, this one was actually in Riverside county and was going to be our ACE up the sleeve, but we were able to negotiate it without having to go into court and have the judge, but that level, but yeah, it can be done.

Thanks so much. Thanks for sharing that. Can I put the chat box by the way, the link to interview with Jason Ike Miller. Reverse mortgage specialist that chatted interviewed. I also interviewed him as well. Last week. We have a fantastic guy, a great interview, and definitely with watching and participating. Okay.

Next up, I see a hand up Derritt Wallace. Welcome Derritt how can we help you?

Deed after death: Do we have to open probate to transfer title in North Carolina? (Probate Process) [00:30:46]

I had a question I had, I have a client that is. Interested in purchasing the home. It is, they’re interested in purchasing the home. That is their their files. So there, the way they’re wanting to do is not have to go through the probate process and it gets separated between their brothers a problem that needs a lot of work.

I was just wondering what they have to go through the process in order to be able to to purchase the hallmarks should or would they be able to do that beforehand? And so is the first of what stated we talked about what is the property. Okay. So I don’t know. North Carolina law specifically though.

I did interview a couple of attorneys from North Carolina recently on my YouTube channel. I’ll say generally, I think the lodge is saved there. You have a property that’s deeded in the name of the father, unless it’s deeded a differently, only the father can sell the property. Right. Father owns it. So you do something to change the title.

You have the deed that it’s. Provides for registered deeds and not coming into that will allow upon death to transfer, but has a standard deed, not that’s what probate does will change. The court has to approve changing the title of property from the deceased father to whoever is the rightful heirs. The challenge then is if there are multiple errors and there’s a fracture that these have a fractional interest, what happens and there, you know, it again, varies based on the lawn.

Sometimes one has to buy out the other cash. Oftentimes you have one, he just wants to sit there for free living in the house for free, or she, and they don’t want to sell the house, but they don’t want to pay rent either. That’s a nice deal, but eventually, the arrows can force a sale. So I would say, definitely talk to an attorney in North Carolina that can help you.

And also are you an investor? It sounds like. I’m a real estate agent. Yes, sir. Oh, you are. Okay. So, I would definitely say fine. What a good excuse to find able to see. I mean, the probate attorney in North Korea. And find one that will give you some advice as to what can be done and what can’t be done as far as those I’m done looking.

I know I interviewed an attorney in North Carolina. They were great. Where are they here? Pop up about you’ll have to look for it so bad, my own YouTube channel. I can’t find whoever when I talked to, but definitely would talk to an attorney in North Carolina. They give you the specific answer, what has to be done for the family.

And they would protect their interests. If it’s multiple errors, there are three or four siblings. They’re all probably entitled to a third or fourth each then probably has to sell the property. There’s a way around it, but definitely, we’ll look into that. Okay. All right. Thanks. Sure. Derek’s hand up. I see Nina.

How to handle B2B objections about commissions vs. quality of work (B2B Networking) [00:33:12]

Hey, bill. I was going to comment on the HECM, based on my current experience. And also it ties into attorneys. I’ve had a few calling me, which is nice inbound. But this current listing I have. It was with a friend of mine, actually an investor who I’m her California realtor. And she works with me here.

She lives in Georgia, and sold a few properties for herself and her family. And so she’s, you know, like, yeah you’re listing it. She’s committed. And I’ve presented a very specific strategy to increase the value of the home with renovations, which of course takes a little bit more time and it does have a heck of them.

And so to get in front of it, I said, go ahead and send out your letter mail to the servicer because one, the services are hard to reach for hackathons and know that is one of the biggest ones, man, that they heard. And two, I wanted her to get a little extra time to ensure we had enough time for our renovation, plus the listing period to get it sold without needing to rush, to get an extension.

And so we did that and then she’s always going back to her attorney and checking in and I said, get out. And I tell her, always check up. And when we initially talked, she said, I said, well, what do you want to do with the property? She said, well, her brother, he wants to keep it. He want, he, it was his, he grew up there.

I said, okay, well, if he wants to do that, he’s going to have to do a buyout. And I explain that process. You know, my fiduciary responsibility is to the best is to my client and to ensure that they’re going to achieve their best interest. Right. So I wasn’t trying to get the listing. I was trying to answer her questions and then I.

Here’s how you can increase the profit, or if you sell it as is, this is how much it will sell for it. You know, all of the litany. And so the attorney she shared with me what the attorney said and mind you, we’re friends, my client and I are friends. And so she is just going to share everything with me.

We’re that close? And she said, oh, she’s just wanting the commissions. Oh, you, you know, she’s painting such a rosy picture for the renovation. Oh, don’t worry about this heck. And we’ve got six months. Let’s just get it sold. Don’t worry about an extension. And I know how I heard that in terms of, and this is true, you know, and I’m not mapping the attorney.

A very good attorney does a lot of probates in California. Well, my point is that you know, attorneys have to advise their clients and they’re trying to give the PR and understanding of being objective and listen to what this you’re being advised by this. Who’s saying what you can and can’t do with the listing.

You know, they’re saying that and you know, it comes out of their mouth sometimes. Oh, they, all they care about is getting the listing and the commissions, which my friend knows that’s not what it’s about at all. And yet she said all of this, but more importantly, she didn’t seem to she’s LA Kim, and she didn’t seem to see the value or the urgency.

Of getting in front of the HECM. Especially when we were already delayed over 30 days with the court date, because the half-brother filed a competing petition, which he, then he said, okay, yeah, you can do it and you can be PR. So my point is that there, there is some degree of protection that the attorney is taking with their clients.

Even if you are also another advisor and there’s an important piece of ensuring communication between you and the attorney. And I referred my client, my friend to this attorney because she’s done so many pieces and she worked with a previous client of mine. And yet I’ve asked her for a consultation, a conversation, and the attorneys just pushing back, not wanting.

And I have a feeling it’s because she kind of put her foot in her mouth. But the bill, what do you have to say to some of those pieces? I mentioned around how. How you kind of have to navigate working with attorneys who may otherwise tend to, you know, not necessarily paint you in the greatest light, risking, attempting to risk your business, but more importantly, kind of doing the opposite of how you yourself have advised the client.

Well, sort of go back to the beginning when I talked about thanks. Thanks for the question. In general, the client talked to an attorney that I didn’t refer them to. I don’t think in general is good for them. I think I know more than most attorneys do out of the law better. I know more about probate real estate than they do with all respect.

And so, I think that I assume that when they talk to somebody else, they’re gonna get information. That’s probably incorrect. Though I might, you know, you and I would disagree. And I might, if I also disagree with Chad, you and Chad, both are more likely to occur EJ an estate to improve a property.

My experience is that 95% of people aren’t suitable to do that. And I would throw it out in passing, but I would probably try to discourage. On that one. And so I think that when you kind of let people go that path, you’re open to criticism. And I would say maybe again, respectfully fair criticism, but in general, I just find the attorneys.

Generally, even the successful ones are not great business people. They might be great attorneys. They might know the law and how to do probate, but they don’t necessarily know how to build relationships with their clients or relationships with vendors like you or me. And so I always assume it’s bad.

That’s why we’re for them to somebody that I can add value in that relationship for my customer. And then, as a result, I’m now referring to an attorney who is more likely to work with me because when they go to an attorney that I’m not referring to. That tree’s gonna try to pull them from me to somebody else.

That’s just how it works and what it felt like was happening versus what’s happening. Here’s what’s happening. So, but the thing is I referred, my client to this attorney. That was my point. Every beginning. I’m not, most of them don’t know how to accept referrals. Right. And then also another friend of mine and other quality he’s like, oh, she was probably has her go-to eight.

Then she gets a kickback from maybe not, maybe it’s their spouse or daughter, maybe not. And I would say some of them are set up that way and half more, just in my experience, such poor business people that they’re just negative. You know, there are people who attorneys by the nature can be very nitpicky and negative about everything.

Now, if you want an email. You know, edit and send to an attorney, they’ll find every little mistake in the air and that’s great. But my experience is, you know when a customer talks to an attorney that tries to give them 10 things to be worried about, and if you followed everything, I was really worried you about you’d never invest in anything.

And that seemed, therefore don’t listen to an attorney. Don’t be surprised, but attorneys trying to talk customers out of business. And I think that’s a problem. That’s why I work hard to refer them to people. I would work it by will say this. My first I took chess program three years ago, two months or three years ago, three months ago, three years and three months ago.

In my first year, I didn’t get any business from referring business to trees. I referred them plenty of leads and got nothing back at all. Shocking to me, I’d worked with trays, my whole career. Shocking. Wow. Yeah. And so it, and now since then, I’ve learned how to work with them more effectively. They’ve learned their limits.

I’ve learned they often don’t look at their business like a business. Did they. You know, artisans were attorneys as opposed to business people. So you had said, I have to understand that going in and worked relationships appropriately for that. And look, I’ve, I have some traits. I’ve done a lot from who I don’t get anything.

That’s just the nature of the beast, but you know, I do believe this. If you take care of the customer in the long run, it comes back to you from somewhere, Do not worry about it, but I would say you don’t expect it back from the attorney. Don’t be surprised that they undermine the business, even their own.

Again, though, I will say, in this case, when you told somebody to improve a property in a California, that’s out there, that’s out there. I think you need to look at that when yourself and say, you know, that’s, most people just aren’t set up to handle doing a home improvement. Most people just don’t have the skillset and the temperament to do it.

And I think you made it, I think you made it easy to train. Well, this particular, my friend is an investor, so she’s done. She does flips. She’s doing a new construction right now. And she does because when she interviewed her, told her what she doesn’t mean that pay attention. Yeah.

And then, well, yeah, I provided a very detailed strategy to the attorney. It doesn’t mean they pay attention upon the request and she’s like, I don’t think she ever read the emails. So it doesn’t surprise me that it’s very revealing because I don’t, I break my businesses focusing on PRS eventually.

I’ll probably, may not even really work with attorneys for referrals just because I’ll have my water grieved by then. But right now I am working with PRS and I can say that. I think it’s definitely, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Their mindset is very much about the practice and business they’re running and everybody is, let’s be honest.

Most realtors are running a real estate job, not a business. Most investors are investing in a deal, but they’re not building a business. We all are guilty to some degree and we’re just seeing it in somebody else cause it affects us. So, okay. He Derek I see you got that, but just for everybody else on the call, I did interview a great attorney in North Carolina, Jason Walls, walls.

And they do probate litigation, probably ministration. They also do again, his multiple attorneys and also interviewed a CPA and is from the does the state administration. So good pressure for you to meet? You might want to see if you can get in there and meet them. If you have a client to bring to them, obviously we’re going to be all ears on how to do business with you.

So, thanks. Thanks, Nina. Thank you. Derek as well. Okay. We’re wrapping up here. I’m sorry, kind of a few minutes left. Last question you might have. Bring desire, raise your hand, or put it in the chat box. I think I covered everything else is in the chat box up until now. And, one of the morals of the story is to watch the past episodes of this call.

And particularly the interviews that Chad does, he does a really good job. And I thought Jason was a good one in general, any other questions and also right, this data was a trend of the heat of view, maybe as well around this great guy here, the questions, challenges, problems.

You guys all have more business, you know what to do with more leads and you can handle.

Okay, well, we’ll finish up here. So look, thank you for being on the call today. Thanks to those who participated and had questions. As I always say to you, the more you participate, the more you make, the more you give, the more you get. That’s just how life works are not my rule. That’s just how life is set up.

So thanks to those who participated. I’m bill gross. I was the guest host today for Chad. Corbett’s probably mastery. We do this every Tuesday. At noon, Pacific 3:00 PM. Eastern it’s accorded will be on his website on the probate mastery website as well as a YouTube channel. So feel free to check that out and also in the probate mastery group, inside Facebook, a great place for networking, asking questions, and getting help as well.

So if I can help it, you can reach out to me on social media. I’m bill gross. I’m Bill Gross EXP that’s my YouTube channel, my Facebook, or LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out if I can help. Karen, glad you learned a lot. Thank you for being on the call. Thank you to everybody. Be on the call today.

Look forward to seeing you next week and make it a great week! Everybody. Thanks so much. Thank you.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Probate Leads and Transactions – Real Estate Coaching with Bill Gross

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