Distressed Home Q&A Recording - August 27th, 2021

Distressed Home Q&A Recording – August 27, 2021

For your ease, we have provided a transcript of the Q&A Recording.

Hey, this is Evan with Meli, formerly Simple Sale Central Florida. In the last couple of months we’ve begun to rebrand from the name to Meli. We’re going to spend the first couple of minutes here discussing the difference between Meli and Simple Sale Central Florida, and why we transitioned to a different name. First off, this is the monthly Q&A for the month of August. We do these once a month and answer common questions from clients we’ve worked with.

So, there are a few reasons for our transition. First off, we believed that our branding wasn’t quite as strong. For various trademark reasons, we thought changing to a more original name was very important for the long-term for the company. We came up with the name Meli, which is short for “Ameliorate,” which means to make something better. We work hard to make a bad situation better. What we do is we take properties with liens, probates, distress, excessive repairs, and things of that nature, and make those situations better.

So, we thought Meli was a good name that represented something very important to what we do. In the next few questions, we’ll go over a little more about Meli and the transition.

1. I tried handling my probate and it got too tough. Can Meli help me?

I always recommend hiring an experienced attorney you trust, because they can help you through the probate process. I’ve seen people try to do it themselves, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone do it themselves successfully where everything works out. It can be a complicated process. You can try to educate yourself online, but there’s conflicting information and it may vary from municipality to municipality. So, you have to be very careful.

You can actually have a probate go through, but then you’re not able to sell the house. In this case, a judge may say that you have the rights to the house. However, when you try to sell it, the power company may say, “Well actually, this paper or that paper wasn’t filed. For those reasons, we’re not going to accept this because we think it’s a risk. The title company is not going to insure this policy.” This essentially means that you’re not going to be given a clear title. Then, you can’t sell the house to 99.9% of people because the title isn’t clear. In those situations we’ll get our attorney involved to help you through the probate and back on the right track.

I think the reason people try to do probates themselves is because they think they’re going to save $2000, $3000, $4000, but ultimately they still end up paying that money, wasting a lot of their time, and getting themselves into a difficult situation with the courts because things haven’t been filed properly. Then, the attorney has to go back, refile, and straighten everything up. Meli can definitely help you through that. We’ve fixed those types of situations before.

2. What is Meli?

So briefly, Meli is very similar to what Simple Sale Central Florida was, but there’s a few key changes. We’re now not only a homebuyer, but we’re also a brokerage and a consultant. Now we will help you with your situation, and we may possibly buy the house, help you with your situation and broker the house for you so you can get top dollar for it, or we can just help you with your situation. If it’s something that requires more than an initial phone consultation, then we would ask for compensation to help you through that situation, if you want to handle it yourself.

We’ve looked at previous deals that we worked on over the past couple of years. Some common issues we’ve worked with are probates, liens, code violations, and title issues. People in those situations are primarily the people that we end up working with. We used to advertise ourselves just strictly as a homebuyer, and we’d do some brokerage stuff as well. But now we’ve realized that we do a lot of home buying and brokering depending on the person’s situation. And, most of those people fall into one of these four categories almost every time. Yeah, the house may have excessive repairs, but a lot of times what comes with that is code violations, or a lien, probate, or something of that nature.

So, we’re really just trying to brand ourselves differently, in the sense that this is our niche, this is what we’re focusing on, and this is the type of people we can help out. Not to say we can’t help in other situations, but a lot of our situations fall under those categories.

3. What’s different about Meli?

I would say the real difference is that we have an extreme focus on those four or so categories: Liens, probates, code violations, and title issues. That’s our focus. And what we promise along with that is that we are very transparent and accountable. We can help someone through almost any situation. There are extreme situations I’ve seen, rarely, where we can’t help but, in almost all situations we can.

4. How can you help me?

If you fall into one of those situations, let’s say, for example, probate; we can help you through that probate. We can refer you to our attorney, and he will help you through your situation. At the same time, we can evaluate your home and make you an offer or market your home and get you maybe 10-30% more because your property isn’t in bad shape. It just has these legal difficulties that we have to get you through. Or, if you have a lien, code violation or some crazy title issue, we can begin working through them.

We’ll make you an offer at the same time, but you may possibly get a mortgage on the house. This means you can have a retail buyer buy the property and net 20% more money. Now, if it’s a situation where you have a lien and there’s a ton of repairs needed for the property, then we’re probably going to be your best fit for just buying the property outright as a homebuyer. We work to give you a lot of options and make sure that you get through your situation.

5. How does Meli work?

When you want to reach out, you can go to our website, MeliHomes.com, and input your address. On the website, you can learn more about the company. After you input your address, you’ll put in your contact info; first name, last name, email, phone number. And that’s just to give us the ability to reach out to you. Then you’ll answer a few questions about your house. We’ll reach out within a few minutes to discuss your property with you and see what’s going on with it.

In that initial consultation, we’ll say, “Well, you know, this is what’s going on with your property. Let us consider it and then we’ll get back with you.” Or, “Okay. I understand what’s going on here. I think this would be the best route for you. We’ll fix the probate, list your property and we think you can get this amount for it. And we’d love to help you do that.” Something of that nature. So, we’ll just have that initial consultation.

And you can always call us directly. We have a phone number on our website, 407-338-4183, on our Facebook, LinkedIn, that you can reach out and call us and we can talk with you. We’ll figure out what your situation is and consider it. Then, we’ll suggest the best route for you, and what working with us would be like and how we can help.

6. Are there any charges for working with you?

No, there aren’t any charges. Typically we’ll start by having that initial phone consultation, and we can do that by email or text, too. Often, it’s much easier to speak over the phone and have that conversation to better understand what’s going on. In that call, we may make a recommendation or we’ll get back to you after we look into it further. There’s no charge for the initial consultation.

Now, if you want to just use us as a consultant, we would dedicate several hours to understanding your situation and helping you through it. In that case there would be a charge for the consultation. But initial calls are not anything that you would be charged for.

7. I found out I have a lien on my home. What is a lien?

Essentially, a lien is someone or a company that has put a legal claim on a property’s title. Most often, the property owner owes money to a person or entity and they want to guarantee they get paid. So, let’s say someone put a roof on your house for $8,000 and you didn’t pay them. They could put a lien on your property that basically says “You never paid us for the $8,000 roof.”

That lien would remain until you paid it off or wanted to sell the property. At that point, you would need to try to negotiate the lien or pay it in full. There’s a process you have to go through to get the lien paid and make sure everything is correct. That can take some time, but it hinders you from selling the property, because if you sell it for $100,000, and the roof is $8,000, you’re going to net $92,000 before you can sell that property free and clear.

8. How can I sell my house with a lien on it?

We’ve bought houses before that have current liens on them. We’ll take those liens in what’s called a Hold Harmless. This essentially states that we’re aware of the liens and title issues but still want to close on the property. We’d just need to evaluate your situation and see if that’s something that would work for us.

Most other buyers will not close with a lien on the property; I don’t know of any that do. But, we have in the past and will definitely consider any situations that may have a lien on the property.

9. Can I sell a house before probate?

Many times people don’t even know if they need a probate or not. However, selling a house before probate is technically possible. But, if you sell it before it goes through probate, you’re not selling it with a clear title. You’re just selling them your interest in the property. Let’s say you’re an heir. Before probate, no one has proved that you actually own the property yet. The judge has to determine that you’re one of the heirs or you’re the only heir. You’re essentially selling them your interest and then you still have to go prove that that is the case.

So it’s technically possible. I’ve never seen it, just because it’s so risky. If I purchase your property for $100,000 and buy your interest, it isn’t a clear title. I know there’s a probate that needs to be done. And then I say, “Okay, I own this property. Now I have to clear up this title.” I could approach the courts and tell them I own the property and we need to do a probate. Then I’ll pay my attorney to find and bring the correct documentation.

We may end up finding more heirs, more people involved that actually own the house that we didn’t know about. It could be a huge mess and I could lose all that money. So, selling the house before probate isn’t technically possible. For 99.99% of people you’re never going to be able to sell it.

But, what you should do is get the house into the probate process. Then, you can actually go under contract in the probate or before probate. Someone like Meli can help you pay for that probate, actually, and get you going. And as soon as a judge determines that these one, two, three, 10 people are the heirs, then you can close on the property and sell it.

10. Can you sell a house that’s not up to code?

You can definitely sell a house that’s not up to code, that has code violations, or stopped work orders. Anything of that nature. We’ve bought houses like that before. It can be a non-issue for a lot of buyers. Most buyers will buy a property that’s not up to code assuming it’s not some crazy situation, but it’s definitely not an issue to sell a house like that.

Wrapping Up

Okay, any other questions? I don’t think there’s any other questions. As always, thank you for listening in. We are now Meli. You can reach us at MeliHomes.com, and give us a call at 407-338-4183. When you call us, a member of our team will ask you a few questions and walk you through the process. That information will then be evaluated and we will let you know what steps we recommend you take. It’s a very simple process.

As always, thank you very much. We’re Meli, a homebuyer, brokerage, and consultant, focusing on liens, probates, code violations, and title issues. We’re here to help. Thanks, guys.