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Buying and Selling Homes

$1 deed transfer

9 years ago

We recently sold our home. The buyer is a real estate agent, they approached us months before our move to buy the house 'privately.' He was difficult to deal with. He insisted on a $1 deed thought the sale price was over 700K. He told our RE agent (who I hired when I found out he was a RE agent) that he did not want the sale on the MLS, so she did not get credit for the sale, which was a very large sale for our area. He acted like an out and out "hoofed mammal of the horse family with a braying call, typically smaller than a horse and with longer ears" as google defines it. We put up with it because it is the midwest, and even a beautiful house in a hot neighborhood is a crapshoot. The purpose of the sale was for his family, he is not flipping it, in fact, I am not sure we could have gotten that much money from a conventional sale where it was listed on the open market.

Why did he want that? Did we make a mistake signing it?

The money is in our account, so that is not a problem. Just wondering if there are any repercussions.

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Comments (4)

rrah
9 years ago
Did he purchase it with the name of an LLC or other type of business company? It could be related to that.

When we purchased our property about 15 years ago, the owner did a similar thing. I think the amount was 5 dollars.

Nothing to worry about. When I worked as an agent I saw this frequently on deeds. I really don't know why, but if it is something nefarious, you are innocent in the matter.

Just a guess here, but depending upon the location it could have something to do with tax assessments. This is particularly true if title companies are not required by law to complete some sort of sales disclosure. At the time we purchased our property the sales disclosures filed with the county were hit and miss. Today title companies in my state won't let the closing finish without them filled out. State laws caught up.
kirkhall
9 years ago
If he paid cash, he just didn't want it on record how much he paid for the property. There could be all kinds of reasons for this.
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edlincoln
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detroit_burb
Original Author
9 years ago
the sale was in Oakland County, MI. He took out a mortgage for 80% of the value and put 20% down in cash. The deed was transferred to him and his wife.

We paid the full transfer tax, so the state was well aware of the actual sale price.

I checked the county records and the deed transfer at $1 was recorded and the buyer's new mortgage at 80% of the sale price was recorded.

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