We're buying from a bankruptcy estate. What does the title work need?

Because in an ordinary sale the seller's authority comes from the deed record, and here it does not. A trustee sells property they never owned personally, under powers a federal court granted for this specific sale. The order is where that authority is written down.

Everything that matters flows from it: who is authorized to sign, what is being sold, on what terms, what happens to the liens, and when the sale can actually close.

We ask for a certified or docket-stamped copy of the entered order, together with the sale motion, the notice, the certificate of service and a current docket printout. What we then require before closing is set by the case and by the order rather than by a fixed checklist — two bankruptcy sales rarely make the same demands. The order is read for the following, and each of these is checked against the file rather than assumed:

• the case number, chapter, court and division, and that the debtor is the record owner;
• the legal description of the property being sold, matching the commitment;
• the named seller and signatory, and the capacity in which they sign — trustee, debtor in possession, or someone authorized by the order;
• the purchase price and material terms, and whether they match the executed contract;
• whether the sale is free and clear under 11 U.S.C. § 363(f), which interests that covers, and which of the section's five grounds is relied on;
• a finding that the buyer is a good-faith purchaser under 11 U.S.C. § 363(m);
• whether the 14-day stay under Fed. R. Bankr. P. 6004(h) is waived, and whether any stay pending appeal has been sought or entered;
• who received notice, and whether every lienholder shown by the search is among them;
• whether the order requires the liens to attach to the proceeds, and how the proceeds are to be disbursed.

Anything the order does not dispose of, we treat as live.

At minimum the questions being answered are these:

• Who signs? The trustee, a debtor in possession, or someone else — named, with authority tied to the order.
• Does the order match the contract? A sale approved on different terms than the parties later agreed is a problem, not a formality.
• What happens to the liens? Whether the sale is free and clear, and if so which interests that covers and which it does not.
• Has the time to appeal run? Closing before it has can expose the buyer if the order is disturbed.

Five federal provisions set the shape of this, and they are worth reading in order. The first two run before the order exists, which is why a sale date is set earlier than buyers expect.

The sale needs 21 days' notice. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2002(a)(2) requires at least 21 days' notice by mail of a proposed sale of property of the estate other than in the ordinary course of business, unless the court shortens the time or directs another method of giving notice.

Objections are due at least 7 days before the sale date. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 6004(b): an objection to a proposed use, sale or lease of property must be filed and served at least 7 days before the date set for the proposed action, or within the time set by the court. Whether anybody objected, and what happened to the objection, is part of reading the docket rather than the order alone.

The order is stayed for 14 days. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 6004(h): "Unless the court orders otherwise, an order authorizing the use, sale, or lease of property (other than cash collateral) is stayed for 14 days after the order is entered." Sale orders frequently waive that stay in terms — which is why the order has to be read rather than assumed.

The appeal period is also 14 days. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 8002(a)(1): a notice of appeal must be filed within 14 days after the order is entered. Those two periods run together but they are not the same thing, and a waived stay does not shorten the time to appeal.

A good faith finding matters a great deal. 11 U.S.C. § 363(m) provides that reversal or modification on appeal of an authorization to sell "does not affect the validity of a sale... to an entity that purchased... in good faith, whether or not such entity knew of the pendency of the appeal, unless such authorization and such sale... were stayed pending appeal." So a buyer who is found to have purchased in good faith, and who closes without a stay in place, keeps the property even if the order is later reversed. That protection is the reason the finding is asked for, and the reason its absence changes the risk.

This is federal bankruptcy law, not Florida title practice, and the words of a particular order govern over any general description of it. On a real file these questions belong to bankruptcy counsel and to the underwriter, and this page is not a substitute for either.

The search still runs the chain and the liens the way any search does. What changes is the examination. A recorded lien that would ordinarily be a payoff requirement may instead be addressed by the sale order — or may not be, depending on what the order actually says and who received notice.

That is the recurring trap: assuming "free and clear" in a sale order sweeps up everything. It sweeps up what it says it sweeps up, against parties who were properly noticed.

It can be. A bankruptcy that closed years ago can still matter to the chain of title if property was administered, abandoned, or conveyed during the case.

The question is always the same one: at the moment of the conveyance in the chain, who had authority to convey — the debtor, or the estate?

Filing a bankruptcy petition brings the debtor's property into the estate. So a deed signed by the debtor personally, during the case, may be void or voidable unless the property had been abandoned, exempted or released first, or the court authorized the conveyance. A deed signed before the petition, or after the case closed and the property revested, is a different matter.

What we look for is the docket, and the document we pull from it is the final order — the order that disposed of the property and closed the case. The petition date and that order bracket the period that matters, and the order is what says whether the property was administered, abandoned under 11 U.S.C. § 554, exempted or sold, and therefore who had authority to convey it while the case was open. Where a deed in the chain falls inside that window and the final order does not explain it, the deed is a requirement rather than a curiosity, and more of the docket gets pulled.

Where the case is old, the docket is thin, or the paper does not resolve it, the routes are a corrective deed from the trustee, a motion to reopen the case, or an underwriter's affirmative decision to insure over it. Which one is available is a legal question and an underwriting question, in that order.

Early, and for the buyer as well as the estate. Bankruptcy sales are federal court proceedings, and questions about the scope of a free-and-clear provision, adequacy of notice, or the effect of an appeal are legal questions with real consequences. A Florida real estate attorney, and where appropriate bankruptcy counsel, should be advising the buyer.