Posted by eric-fl on July 19, 2001 at 23:44:26:
If the seller can claim this as her homestead (does the zoning affect that?) then I’m not sure why you’d be worried about alerting the judgement holder as to a sale. If the seller is behind on their loan, which is presumably in superior position to the judgement, then the judgement holder has nothing to lose, and everything to gain by selling to you at a discount, since they would likely be wiped out by the foreclosure of a superior lien. In addition, in Florida (my state), if someone clams homestead on a property, then in most cases, a judgement holder cannot foreclose on their lien. They can prevent a sale to someone else without being paid off, but they can’t force one to be paid off, as I understand it. You may want to see if Texas is the same way on this.
It seems that this lien holder is in a particularly weak position. Rather than worrying about “triggering them to believe there is a sale about to happen”, I’d probably be looking to do exactly that, and explaining to them in a gentle way that they can either sell to me now, at a discount, or get nothing. “Half a somethin’s better’n all a nuthin’” is how I’d put it, based on the information I have to work with from your post.