Today, we drove an hour to San Bernardino Courthouse to make a bid on a particlar property. The address was 13035 HOLMWOOD CT. VICTORVILLE according to ForeclosureRadar.com…HOWEVER, when the property came up for auction, the person announced the address, it turned out that it was a different house (two doors down). Same street name, but different address number and the APN was one digit off. We had the person repeat the address and APN a couple times to make sure it was true.
The moral of this story, please check with the Trustee first to confirm the address. We were sooooo close of buying the wrong house had we not catch the address number. The one we wanted was never auctioned. Maybe someone can answer question. Why did ForeclosureRadar make this error? Was this just a human error that we must double check before making any purchase? Don’t get me wrong, I do like this website, however, there need to be a reason.
We work really hard to not miss anything, but public records are messy so there is no perfect system.
Sometimes notices get matched to the wrong property. If you can’t find the property the auctioneer is calling by address, be sure to search by trustee sale number (our iPhone app allows you to do this really quickly by using the filter results field at the top).
Errors can be made way back to the time the Deed of Trust was recorded and the wrong legal description attached. We also see errors made by the trustee on the foreclosure notices where the numbers on the APN are transposed. Even the address that the auctioneer announces is not guaranteed to be the actual property that is being foreclosed.
We are really happy that you caught this before bidding on the property. You will always want to verify all information prior to bidding.
Chris - I’d also recommend that you read our disclaimer (you’ll see it lots of places in the app) and watch this video before bidding: http://www.youtube.com/foreclosureradar#p/u/17/1CanJbhGdJM Keep in mind that no property research is perfect… even a $350 title report from a major title company isn’t guaranteed unless you buy title insurance, and even then the only reason for the insurance is because mistakes still happen. Obviously for $50/mo we can’t research every property to even that level, so yes, you absolutely do need to verify details before bidding. Note in the video I recommend not only verifying the address, but the specific loan thats going to sale - I’ve seen two loans go to sale on the same property on the same day (a 1st and a 2nd) and someone accidentally bought the 2nd thinking it was the other sale.
The legal description is what defines the security of the Deed of Trust, not the APN or the address. Always check the legal description and look at the map !!