Probate home sale is a nightmare for man

Leif Johnson of Cameron Missouri inherited a house his father bought at a probate sale. His father had already started renovating the property when he died. Johnson was all ready to move in with his daughter when he got a phone call. Johnson said

Received a phone call one morning saying that they had some good and bad news for me. They said the good news was the appraisal came back great, my credit was wonderful, the loan was ready to go, all I needed to do was sign it. But the bad news was I didn’t own 100 percent of the property.

Ouch. What? As it turns out, he only owned two-thirds of the home due to a mistake by the estate’s attorney. The estate was never finalized.

Johnson is out $10,000 and has nothing to show for it. He has some advice for potential probate home buyers

My message to anybody dealing with a probate would definitely be have your own attorney, one that you trust to go over every last bit of what is going on. Request a title search. That is probably the biggest thing and in this case would have taken care of all of it.”