I have a good one on the buy-side in Illinois.

After only about 75 days, we got a satisfactory approval letter from Ing, which I'm told is quite a feat. The closing was supposed to be today. Thursday evening I checked with our lender and our attorney and we're all set. 

Friday morning, the lender calls me. Some issue with the title. He's not sure, but the closing is cancelled for Monday.

Long story short, the seller divorced in 2008. As part of the divorce, the house was to be sold and the proceeds split. Obviously, that didn't happen. In 2009, the husband died. His only heir was his 6-year-old son, currently in custody of the wife (seller). Now there are obviously no proceeds, and nobody to split them with anyway.

Ing requires us to use ULS as the title co. They catch this on Friday, one business day before closing. ULS will not waive this cloud on the title.

Now we're being told we have two options: 1) get a judge to sign off on the deed, which could take a few weeks, or 2) we have to "go through probate court."

At that, we've reached the limits of my legal knowledge. Does anyone know what our odds of getting a judge to sign off on this are? And how long it might take?

The seller side is actually willing to let my clients take possession prior to closing while we work all this out. But my clients want to do major work on the place. And if we have to go through probate, it will be months, and by then our short sale approval will be expired.