Do you need a lawyer to handle your tax sale paperwork?

In my book, “Learning to play the real estate tax auction game” (available now on Amazon) I answer this very question. Now all you lawyers out there may take me to task for my answer, but in fact, you don’t always need a lawyer for everything. The process is lengthy, but most of it is just sitting around waiting.

If you buy a tax lien and the original owner pays off the lien, then there’s not that much you need to do outside of cashing the check. But, if you are trying to use the tax auction to actually gain title to homes, there is some more paperwork involved. Here’s where the lawyer decision comes in. There are several forms, and you’ll have to visit several county offices, and the clerks there will not offer you much advice and guidance. They will assume that you know what you’re doing, and government clerks typically have very little tolerance for people filing anything pro se. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it–it just means you need to be prepared.

One strategy is to hire a lawyer to guide you through the first one, and then use that as a guideline for doing it yourself for future titles. If you’re not comfortable with paperwork or familiar with county government bureaucracies, then this may be a worthwhile investment. As a bonus, if you hire a lawyer to guide you through the paperwork and in the meanwhile, the owner steps up and pays, they also have to pay your lawyer fees. Local statute will determine however, how much you are able to claim for legal fees (including the title search), so make sure that your lawyer’s fees do not exceed this statutory amount, or you will have to pay the difference.

But in the end, it’s all just paperwork, and knowing which forms to file where. There are no court appearances or tricky legal maneuvers required, and in reality, the lawyer’s clerks will probably do most of the work. Once you have the forms from the first round, then it’s just a matter of copying them, plugging in the new information, and filing them on your own, and avoiding the legal fees.