Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

I was looking to buy a foreclosed house. On searching through the records at the county recorder's office, found that the the owner (A) who had defaulted on the mortgage had on the same day he bought the property conveyed it back to the seller (A) through a quit-claim-deed. The bank foreclosure proceedings seem to have named only (B) the mortgagor and not (A).

Should I worry about the title being clouded?


Asked on 3/02/13, 10:13 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Stephen Messutta

Yes something doesn't make sense. Normally a buyer doesn't reconvey purchased property to a seller on the day of closing. What may have happened was that the buyer had purchased the property under an installment sale contract which the buyer somehow financed because part of the typical unwind of an installment sale is a quitclaim deed. Also banks generally don't lend on installment sales contracts, so the foreclosure doesn't quite make sense. The best way of determining the status of title is to order a commitment for title insurance or an ownership search, but without more complete research, status of title appears questionable.

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Answered on 3/03/13, 2:51 pm


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