FAQ

1. How do I find the newspaper that carries my county’s Probate Notices?

First, please review pages 27-31 of the manual. As I say, you

should be looking for a “Legal and Construction Notice” paper.

If you cannot locate this paper, call a couple of Probate

Attorney’s offices and inquire of the staff as to which paper they

use in your area. You might tell them someone in your family

has recently passed away and you are attempting to conduct

probate on your own.

Also, more and more counties are now publishing their Probate

records on line and this will become bigger everyday. Check

with your county to see if they are now making their records

available on line.

2. I can’t find the PR’s address…should I mail to the attorney?

My suggestion is to mail to the PR at the deceased’s address.

Most often, the PR is receiving the deceased’s mail so ultimately

your letter should end up in the PR’s hands. I do not suggest

you mail to the attorney. I have never found them to be

cooperative and as a matter of fact, on several occasions they

have been adversarial to me. It appeared in those situations

they may have lost sight as to the best interest of their client.

3. I live in California and the process seems to be different. Do you have any suggestions?

I have placed two resources for you at the bottom of my site

under the “Articles” link. One is the CA Probate Code (free) and

the other is to a link for a book that can be valuable to you,

“How to Probate an Estate in California.” If I were going to be

a Probate investor in CA, I would have both of these.

4. Should I contact the Attorney if I cannot find the PR’s name and address?

My advice is no. I have never found the attorney’s to be helpful.

It would seem they would want to forward your interest to the

PR, but I have never found that to be the case. They have been

especially uninterested if they are appointed by the court to be

the PR of the estate.

5. Can you help me find the PR’s phone number?

Since 9/11, PR’s phone numbers have been harder to get. I

don’t know of any special method of locating these numbers

other than directories both online and offline.

6. Do you hand address your envelopes?

No I do not. I use an inkjet printer for envelopes both for the

return address and the mailing address. While hand addressing

is a little more time consuming, it is certainly as effective –

probably even more so. I just choose the printer to save time.

7. How can I purchase Probate Properties if I don’t have any money or if my credit could use some help?

Since this is my most frequently asked question, I recently

wrote a second book on this very topic and you can find it at

www.MakeAFlippinFortune.com. It deals specifically with this

question and also addresses other types of real estate finance

questions.

8. How does your course vary from the various expensive seminars now being promoted?

I have a recorded message on my site right now about this very

topic, so my first advice would be to go to my site

www.BuyProbateProperty.com and listen to my audio

recording. Since Probate investing is such a specific topic, the

methods of locating the properties will be the same. This is

such a unique market that none of us that teach about this

subject have any secrets the others don’t know. It really boils

down to two questions; how do you learn best and how much

do you want to pay. If you will do some research on the

internet, you will soon find out which courses are well thought

of and which ones are not. I guess this probably gives you a

little hint as to where I rank or I wouldn’t send you there, would I?

9. Do I have to go to the Courthouse to do my research?

Each of the 3077 counties have developed their own methods

for handling Probate, so it’s not possible for me to know exactly

how your county works. What I give you in the book is the

various methods that I know of and you need to determine

which one applies to your county.

10. Can I get my Probate information on line?

See question #9.

11. What about the personal property? What do you do with it?

I must admit, I take the easy way out. I always sell the personal

property to an Estate Sales person for a flat fee. This may not

be the most profitable method, but it is the easiest and the

quickest. I suppose if I wanted to make some extra money, I

could hold the estate sale myself, but I’ve just never been

attracted to this type of business. Therefore, I just sell it for a

flat price and let someone else deal with it.

12. I’ve been told Inheritance Brokering is another way of making money. Have you ever used one and do you think it’s a valuable service to offer?

I’ve had this question asked many times, but to be honest with

you, I have never once had an estate ask me if I know of

someone offering this service. I know there are companies that

will lend to estates, but I’ve always wondered how they get their

business since I am one of the most experienced Probate

investors in the US, and I’ve never had even one request to

borrow against the estate. Maybe it’s an East Coast thing … I

don’t know.

13. Should I contact the estate if I see they have a trust?

Absolutely! The trust is merely a way of passing title and it is

quite likely the heirs will be in exactly the same situation they

would have been in had there not been a trust. They don’t want

or need the property … they want or need the money from the

sale of the property. However, often times the trustee is a

corporate entity, like a bank, and can be hard to work through.

My position is it’s always worth a letter.

14. Do you ever put contingencies in your sales agreement to protect yourself?

Absolutely not! Remember, the seller is giving you a giant

discount. If you start adding some of the “weasel” clauses that I

see others advocating, you will never complete a deal. The

seller is already questioning his/her sanity of giving you the big

discount, and if you decide to start adding contingency clauses

that are only to your benefit, you will kill the deal. Don’t do it.

If you structure your deal as I have described in this book, there

is plenty of “wiggle room” for you. You can make some

mistakes and still make some money.

15. Should you add “and/or assigns” to your purchase agreement?

Because simultaneous closings have fallen out of favor, I would

start adding the “and/or assigns” clause to my contracts. All

you need do is on the line that lists the buyer, you would put the

phrase “and/or assigns” after your name. This, then, permits

you to sell this contract to another person if you should so

decide.

16. How can I improve my response rate to my letters?

As I mention on pp. 45-46, your responses will improve dramatically if

you will follow up with a phone call about 10 days after you mail your

letter. I also give you a suggested script that you are welcome to use.

17. How can I find out if the deceased owned real property?

First of all please review pp. 31-31 of my book as I talk about the methods

you can use to find real property info. As I say in the book, almost always

the Probate file will tell you if there is real property in the estate or not.

However, if you are getting your Probate information on line or from a paper

the notice may not discuss this. The property information is a function of

the tax recorders office so that is where you need to look if you are electing

not to go the court house to view the actual Probate file. The tax information

may be available online or you may have to ask your title company if they can

assist you.