We've been renting a home for the past three years...with plans to buy at a reduced cost in exchange for doing all the repairs and improvements on it, as our landlord was a very sick alcoholic and just couldn't be relied on to do it himself.
Well, he died last week.
He has two brothers, no will.
Neither brother even knows, at this point, what bank the loan is with, or how much is owed on the home. One brother has told us he will find out in the next few days and arrange for us to pay the bank the mortgage directly, so that we can prevent it from being foreclosed on. No one in the family seems interested in keeping the house.
We would love to have some advice on how we should go about this. We likely can't get financing in the next year...because of a bankruptcy last year...and we're in an area with many, many foreclosures and rapidly declining home values.
Any good ideas on how we should proceed? Should we pay the mortgage? Should we let the house foreclose, bank our rent payments, and wait til the court tells us what to do? Is there a chance that if it forecloses we could buy it for a more reasonable price?

