Finding homeowners.... Any more ideas?

In December, we discovered a vacant house in the neighboring village. According to the neighbor, the owner was quite suddenly admitted to a nursing home and got a guardian. There is a estranged acquaintance in a northern German big city, and the house is supposedly supposed to be sold through a real estate agent. I have contacted all the agents active in this area... no success. I asked other neighbors/villagers, also without any further information. The postman still delivers letters to the postal address, and there is no forwarding request. Then I dropped a letter in the mailbox, hoping that the guardian still regularly empties it. Finally, I wrote to the guardianship court. But they cannot/may not help me. I'm slowly running out of ideas... this is really maddening :rolleyes: I could now call the surrounding nursing homes, but they are not allowed to tell me anything because of data protection... Does anyone have any ideas?

Mowing down the garden fence with the car and reporting it to the police ... no

The neighbors should know where he went, who cleaned for him, who he played chess with, whether he belonged to their church or another, etcetera. Detective work. You can write to me at gmx (de), exchanging the object information here would probably be a bit sensitive.

The only thing that helps is to keep asking around in the neighborhood: * Which nursing home? Ask for the caregiver there. * Inquire about contacts to the relatives and find out who the caregiver is there

With all due understanding for the interest in a house, one should not overlook how it might possibly affect the owner/the family of the house. If my father had to go into a nursing home due to a sudden deterioration in health, the last thing I would want to deal with would be annoying prospective buyers. I would already consider further inquiries to be outright harassment. I actually appreciate data protection regulations for the first time. Calling nursing homes to inquire about the residents... not even real agents are that audacious. Otherwise, just break in... after all, it's almost your house anyway and it's cheeky of the owner not to sell it after a month.

I can only speculate, but if suddenly a guardian is responsible, then the family bond might not be very strong. Based on the sparse information, it initially sounds like the family doesn’t care at all. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a guardian.

If that is the case, you can definitely talk to the guardian in a matter-of-fact way. If there is no well-filled account, it could be in the old man’s interest to quickly liquidate the house in order to pay for the nursing home. I know not everyone wants to hear that, but for exactly such cases a house is made as retirement provision.

I would investigate further. You can do that in a very friendly manner as well. (Not like my writing in the previous paragraph.)