medical bills | Myrtle Beach Homes | Carolina Forest Homes

I’ve been in the business now for well over 15+ years and I consider myself a rather seasoned agent these days. During that time I’ve helped well over 400 people buy or sell a home in Myrtle Beach. I’ve run into many different issues and problems and feel that I normally do a good job handling those objections as they come up and able to figure out a resolution in a quick manner. Every once in a while though, something new comes along that is a new issue. This past week I experienced one of these things.

Watch this video to learn more about it:

Normally when there are title issues during a real estate transaction it is in regards to the seller of the property. Either they forgot to pay property taxes, had someone do work on the home but never paid them for their services, or had some sort of disagreement about the final cost and the contractor placed a lien against them. When this happens, the property will not have a clear title which is needed in order for the property to transfer hands. In these types of situations, many times the liens can be handled at closing and cleared up without issue.

However what we experienced was something completely opposite. While creditors are no longer reporting your medical bills to the credit reporting agencies and they may not show up on your credit report, they can still cause major issues with title work when purchasing a Myrtle Beach home. In this recent situation the buyer had outstanding medical bills from 2008 that had not be resolved here in South Carolina. She was a single mom that had gotten divorced, moved back to Wisconsin and had filed a bankruptcy there many years ago. Everything on her credit was discharged off in the bankruptcy and the buyer was off to starting a new life and rebuilding her credit score.

Fast forward from 2008 to present day and all of a sudden this issue shows up in a title search. When the credit report was done by the lender, it came back with not issues and so everything was on track for closing until the attorney got the title work back. When they did, this medical expense showed up as a lien against the buyer. Because this lien was there, the moment the deed would have transferred hands, there would have been an issue with the new title on the home. This issue had to be resolved before the buyer could take possession of the property.

In this situation, luckily the amount owed was under $1,000 and was able to be resolved within just a few days and cleared up. If it had been a higher amount, it could have easily taken 6-8 more weeks to get handled. With the way our current Myrtle Beach real estate market is, I honestly would have advised my seller to cancel the contract with this buyer and place their home back on the market. When we originally placed the home on the market, we had an offer within the first 7 days and I was fairly confident we could do that again.

Ultimately the buyer would have lost the home over something as mundane as a ten year old medical bill that was under $1,000. Luckily for her sake, she was able to get the title issue resolved quickly and we were able to close on the home just a few days later than we hoped, but still within the contractual timeline.

In closing, while you may no longer see those medical bills on your credit report and they may not affect your score anymore, it is still extremely important to get these issues handled and resolved so that when you get to purchase a home these things do not delay the purchasing process or cause you to lose that home you fell in love with. If you would like to learn more about this issue, feel free to reach out to me. You can either send me an email through my contact page or simply call/text me at 843-222-9402.

photo by: aronbaker2