Never go to an Estate Sale with money!
Today I am going to tell ya why you should never purchase anything that requires a title at any estate auction. You may end up with more trouble then what you saved in your purchase.
Anyway on Saturday Ruth and I decided that we hadn't been to an auction for sometime, so I looked on the internet for locals ones and found that two would be held up town. We left early and had breakfast then off to the sales we went. The first one was interesting but nothing that we wanted to wait around for. So off we went to the next. There we found more interesting stuff so we decided to hang around.
Eventually they got around to the truck, car and boat. All three had been sitting for awhile as both owners had recently passed and everything was in disrepair. As always I am only interested in things that go cheap and the boat looked like it was going to go cheap. It ws dirty from sitting and the trailer needed a good sandblasting and repaint. Needless to say, I jumped in on the bidding and was stupid enough not to jump back out. Soon I was a happy owner of a 16 ft runabout, with a 40 horse motor and trailer.
Now on to my story.
I went to the courthouse today with all the papers needed to switch everything over to my name. Thats when I find out that the last thing you have to do before you die, is to sign ALL LEGAL PAPERS that you are the owner and that you want to transfer stuff to someone else once you die. That is because it is to late after you DIE. The court house doesn't care that your dead, they only want a current/assigned document statement with your name on it.
Keep in mind I had history, I had a bill of sale, signed off by the executor, and I had copies of both their death certificates. What I didn't have was a current signed title for either the boat or the trailer. Keep in mind we are talking a total tax bill to relicense everything at $35.00 or so.
After talking to 6 different people in two different departments, I had all the information needed which I took back to the lawyer handling the estate. I informed him that they would not transfer the titles as the people listed on the documents where dead. At that time he and I lwhere thing the same thing and it was "DUH It was and estate sale!"
Needless to say the lawyer was nice about it, and he made some calls. He couldn't get by their rules, so now we have to send off documents to the 2 daughters and have them sign newly issued titles, which still had the dead owners names on it, but they have to sign and send back before it can be switched to our names.
One lives out east so we will not see anything till after the 4th so there goes the fun in the sun. We have a boat but can't use it!
I guess if I really want too, I could place it in the KOI pond and wish we were on a lake.
Later and like I stated above. IF YOUR GOING TO DIE SOON, sign stuff!
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