Simulation: a fictional property for practice.

A Texas trustee’s sale: are the first 15 days safe?

You win a house at a first-Tuesday courthouse auction in Texas for $210,000. Know when to pay, and why to wait before you spend.

A fictional house at a trustee’s sale in fictional Bluebonnet County, Texas.

• Sale: Trustee’s sale on the first Tuesday, at the Bluebonnet County courthouse, Texas
• Loan being foreclosed: The first deed of trust (not a home equity loan)
• Title report: A federal tax lien recorded against the owner after the deed of trust, more than 30 days before the sale
• Value as-is: About $300,000; someone appears to live there

Mission 1: When do you pay?

The trustee accepts your $210,000 bid. When is the money due?

• Right away, unless the trustee agrees to a short delay, in the form the trustee announced before the day’s first sale
• Within 30 days, once my loan closes
• After I inspect the inside and decide

Bring funds in the form the trustee requires. Each trustee sets its own reasonable terms.

Mission 2: You won. What’s true now?

Pick everything that applies to this sale.

• For 15 days, the trustee or lender can rescind the sale for reasons the law lists, and I’d get back only what I paid
• Because of the federal tax lien, the United States may buy the house back within 120 days
• The owner has 180 days to buy it back
• I can change the locks once my deed is recorded

Record your deed right away, but hold off on repairs and new contracts until the 15 days pass, and plan for the 120-day federal window. Confirm the IRS got 25 days’ notice; if not, its lien (filed more than 30 days before the sale) stays on the title. If someone living there is a tenant with a genuine lease, federal law generally gives them at least 90 days’ notice to move.

Knowing what you know now, would you bid $210,000 on this one? Buy means bid, Investigate means learn more first, Pass means skip it.

Buy, investigate or pass? Work through the drill to see what an experienced investor would weigh.