I am paying rent to a person who claims that he owns the property. I have gone to the Tax assessor and they say that he is not the owner on record. The assessor also states that there has been no deed transfer in the last few years. The property is behind on taxes. The acting landlord provided me with no lease. The owners on record are deceased. I have also checked and there was no will filled for the deceased owners. The acting landlord has made no repairs. Who do I need to contact to find out who owns this property, and should I still be paying rent to this person.

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Originally Posted by techkitty69

I have also checked and there was no will filled for the deceased owners.

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Where do you suppose such a will would be filed? It should be filed with the probate court. Check there.

It could be that your landlord inherited the property but never bothered to probate the will. He would, in that case, "own" the property, but would have to get the will probated in order to sell the property.

There was a recent case on LI where this guy moved into abandoned, foreclosed properties and rented them out to people. He claimed he had done some things that legally allowed him to do so. The court disagreed and he was convicted.

I mention this because it sounds like what this guy is doing. I would consult the police, this may be fraud.

I have seen people that made appoints for people to look at apartments and take the first month rent and security deposit money and run. They did not own the property but somehow had a way in.
I never knew of any of them actually rented like Scott said. I did hear that one on the news though.
But more likely it is as A K lawyer said