The Brother Who Lives in Toronto

The call came on a Sunday at eight in the morning.

“Ilan, I’ve found something amazing in Bucharest. Three rooms, third floor, a developing neighbourhood. The seller is a woman in her seventies who inherited the property from her parents. She wants to close fast. The price is twenty percent below market. I want in.”

I knew that tone. It’s the tone of someone who has already decided, and is now looking for someone to tell him, “Great, go ahead.”

Rani is a senior executive at a tech company, one of those people who live among percentages and numbers and know how to analyse risk. He had already done one deal in Poland that turned out well, he had read a lot, and he had heard dozens of stories about properties bought from Bucharest families who want to get rid of them quietly. He knew what he wanted. He just didn’t yet know what he didn’t know.

“Send me the property details,” I said. “I’ll ask for the land register extract.”

The documents arrived a few hours later. I opened the extract.

The property was registered in the names of two people. Not one.

When I called Rani and told him, there was a short silence. “But she said she’s the owner.”

“She is an owner. One of them. According to the register, the property belongs to her and, it seems, to her brother, in equal shares.”

“So I need to talk to the brother too?”

“First you’ll have to find him.”

It turned out the brother had left for Canada twenty-two years earlier. The family hadn’t spoken to him in recent years. The sister had a feeling he was in Toronto, a phone number that might still work, and a certainty that he would agree because “he hasn’t been interested in this property at all for years.”

I explained the reality to Rani. In Romania, as anywhere with a proper land register, you can’t carry out a sale of a property belonging to two owners without both of their signatures. Not the signature of one. Not a general power of attorney signed ten years ago. An actual signature, on this deal, after he has had it explained to him what he is signing.

“How long does it take?” Rani asked.

“It depends. If he agrees immediately – a few weeks. If he starts asking questions, wants to check what the property is worth – months. If he doesn’t respond at all – the deal can’t happen.”

Silence. “And what about the price?”

“The price she offered is hers. The brother will get half of the proceeds. Right now he doesn’t know the price. He hasn’t agreed to it.”

The sister found the brother. It took her three days.

He answered. That was the good side of the story.

The less good side: when he realised that an Israeli wanted to buy the apartment he had grown up in as a child, something in him woke up. He hadn’t visited Romania in fifteen years. He hadn’t thought about this property. But the moment someone else wanted it, it suddenly had a different value.

He hired his own lawyer in Bucharest. He asked for an independent valuation.

The valuation came back with a price eight percent higher than what had been offered to Rani.

Suddenly the “deal twenty percent below market” was a lot less of one.

Rani called me after he got the update. His voice was no longer the voice of that Sunday morning. “Ilan, I’m not sure it’s worth all the complication.”

“I understand. But now we have someone to negotiate with, and something to negotiate about.”

We negotiated. The sister had an interest in closing; she wanted the money. The brother had a different interest. He didn’t live in Romania, didn’t know the market, and had suddenly realised that he had a property that might be worth more than he thought. That he didn’t have to hurry. That he could wait.

I tried to create a situation in which both sides gained from closing quickly: the sister gets what she needs, the brother gets a reasonable price, and Rani gets a property that still makes economic sense. It took time. More calls than I had planned. A few days when I didn’t know whether the brother would agree at all.

Eight weeks later we reached closing. Not at the original price, but at a price Rani could live with.

On the day we signed, he sent me a message. “Did you know it would turn out like this?”

I answered him honestly: “I knew there was a brother. I didn’t know what he would decide.”

That’s exactly the point. Bucharest is full of properties like this. So are Athens, Nicosia and Lisbon. Inheritances that stayed registered in the names of two siblings, three heirs, sometimes more. Families scattered across five countries who had no reason to sort out the paperwork until someone came along and wanted to buy.

These properties usually come with an attractive price, and not by chance. The seller sitting across from the buyer wants to close. He doesn’t always tell you there’s someone else in the picture. Not because he’s a crook. Sometimes because he’s sure his brother will agree. Sometimes because they haven’t been in touch for years and he never checked. Sometimes because he simply wants you to move forward, and for the rest of the details to get sorted out later.

Before you go into a deal with a seller who inherited a property, ask one question: who else is registered on the property? Not on the basis of what the seller tells you. On the basis of the land register extract.

It takes less than a working day to check.

And it can save you eight weeks, a price change and, sometimes, a deal that falls through.