Occupied house, hoarder conditions, seller's sister lives there and won't sign

You're selling a possession problem with a house attached, and that's priced separately from the house. Start there, because it changes every other decision.

The sister with eleven years of occupancy and no rent is the whole deal. Depending on your state she may be a tenant at will, a licensee, or in a handful of states have some claim worth arguing about, and the removal process, timeline, and cost differ enormously by state and often by county. Some places that's a 45-day process. Some places it's nine months with a judge who hates the filing. You cannot underwrite this until you know which one you're in, and that's a question for a local attorney before you spend anything else on it.

On your three options. Getting her out inside your due diligence window is the one that sounds cleanest and is usually the worst, because you'd be directing a possession action on property you don't own, with no standing, and the seller is the only one who can act. If he's willing, the deal becomes: he delivers vacant, and your contract closes on that condition. Sellers in this situation frequently agree and then don't do it, so build a walk-away, not a hope.

Selling it occupied is genuinely doable, and the buyer pool is small. People who buy occupied distress underwrite the cleanout and the eviction as line items, and they'll take $15k to $25k off for the possession risk plus whatever the cleanout runs, which on floor-to-ceiling is often $8k to $15k on its own. Your $10k fee is not the constraint. Your $130k might be.

Closing it yourself is where the money is and it's a different business. You'd need the $130k plus holding costs through an unknown possession timeline, and you'd own the sister's situation personally.

Run the numbers on cash-for-keys before anything else. A few thousand dollars and moving help, negotiated by the seller while he still holds title, resolves more of these than any legal process and does it faster. If he won't have that conversation with his own sister, that tells you what the rest of the deal looks like.

One thing here still isn't clicking for me. If the seller has to deliver the house empty for the deal to work, isn't the contract basically worthless until he does? What's being assigned at that point?

@juniper the contract still has value, it's just contingent. Assignable rights subject to a condition. The buyer's paying for the price and the position, knowing closing waits on vacancy.

Every occupied unit I've inherited in small multifamily has taught me the same thing: the person in possession has more practical power than the paperwork suggests. Eleven years and no rent, she thinks it's her house. She may not be wrong in her own head and that's what makes it slow.

Is there a service that does just this part? Someone who handles the relocation conversation for a fee. Feels like it'd be worth $3k to a buyer who's otherwise walking.

@beacon those exist and they're usually attached to a law firm or a property management shop, priced hourly. The reason it isn't a clean product is that the outcome isn't controllable, so nobody can quote a flat fee against it.

@harrow, the number I'd want before anything else is what the cleanout actually costs. Floor to ceiling in a house that size could be twenty dumpsters, and if there's biohazard you're into a different contractor class entirely. Your $70k rehab estimate is doing a lot of work if the cleanout wasn't scoped separately.

Trying to work out where a person like me fits and threads like this are the real version of the answer. The strategy gets sold as contracts and spreads and the actual job is telling a man his sister has to move.