It kind of depends if the previous owners are on the hook or not. In my situation it was sort of unique because the previous owners filed for bankruptcy so me paying on those loans actually was helping them repair their credit and it never kept them from getting credit cards eventually and getting loans for vehicles so they didn't care.

That all being said I wouldn't try to execute one of these by just filing paperwork with the county recorders office. I would go through a title company and have title insurance and all that. You don't want to have a clouded title and there be confusion of who legally owns the property.

The most likely scenario to take down a property like this is if someone has equity but there is a lot of deferred maintenance that they really can't fix and there isn't really enough room in the deal to be trying to pay realtor commissions to market the property on MLS. So wrapping the loans and paying the previous owners some money so they have some cash in hand to get them moved into another place.

Because the alternative would be potentially take a foreclosure if they are behind and if there is equity they really can't do a short sale and the money isn't there to really market the property and all that.

It is a tough deal to find to be honest with you. And then on top of that even talking to the owners about what you are looking to do could be met with skepticism. Like they would be worried you are going to sort of "take the property from them." But in reality the bank is going to take it from them so it is better they have cash in hand.

Also they are able to independently talk to people at the title company to understand everything from a 3rd party which can certainly help.

There are just a lot of people who for some reason think that real estate agents are the experts and that you have to go through them to do a transaction.