can I do anything

Question

Almost 2 years ago, my disabled son purchased a home as a rental [and to live in it when and if he is ever able. wIt as an extreme fixer-upper but we worked on it every week-end [commuting from Denver] I fell in love with pueblo. husband and I both have bad physical problems and he was forced to retire way earlly. moving to Pueblo, with the prices of houses made it easy to decide to move there.

We bought a total of 3 fixer-uppers and we fixed them all up nice and rented 2 of them. one of them was a HUD home, which we would have to live in for at least a year which was fine. we wished to live there forever . When the neighbors all started coming over to see the "Gang House." We discvered that violent gang members had inhabited the house for well over a year. The police ha"d been called repeatedly but had been able to do nothing because the bank refused to press charges. The people who had been living next door had been coerced, out of fear, to allow the inhabitants to "share" their electricity until they moved out of fear. We were told that when the gang members had been forced to move [because the bank decided to put it on the market] that they had sworn that they would come back and reclaim

Last month, on a saturday, during the day, a group of people with guns came into our home. They kept threatening us and made us lie on the floor in the hall landing at the top of the stairs. They were not even wearing masks [no, I could not identify any of them] I thought they were going to kill us. I was also afraid that my son would have a meltdown, in which case they would surely kill us, and I was so afraid that even if they didn't that bobby would die anyway because he has heart failure.

they stole everything. we lived. the cops never arrested anyone. my son was and is too terrified to live there and we are now staying in a travel trailer in a place we love but that is only for the summer.

we started receiving anonymous phone calls that this homeless lady that we had felt sorry for but eventually kicked out, had become friends with the former gang squatters and convinced tHEM to reclaim the house as they had vowed and that she knew exactly where the "valuables were." [which the robbers did know exactly where to look]

I do not know if we will ever move back there. it is looking doubtful. I think that if the police had been given permission to do something in the beginning [and this is colorado, not california] that the criminals would never have gotten into their heads that this was THEIR house.

Please advise.

Greg H. · Answer

I would not hesitate to sell the property if I was in your situation. The Hud requirement to occupy for 1 year is not a deed restriction so you are not prohibited in any way from selling the property. The form you sign with the contract package does state that you will occupy for 12 months and that was your intent at the time. Occasionally occupied HUD homes are sold within a year if circumstances change such as a job location change or even a lost job. I would document everything to include police reports as well as any counseling and such from the incident. Sell the property and move on with your life

Account Closed · Answer

Hire a security team. Install cameras everywhere, Motion lights, Alarms. Tell all news outlets. Post on social media! Fight back or sell it. I'm so sorry to hear about this!

Robert Herrera · Answer

Vicki Gleitz you can sell it to me. What is the address. What did you pay for it

Bill S. · Answer

@Vicki Gleitz that is a terrible situation and horrific story. It's also the reason the house was so cheap to buy. Everyone living in the area knew the baggage and refused take the risk. You were oblivious of the risk and moved forward. It appears you bought in the war zone of Pueblo. You might hire off duty police officers to live with you full time for protection. Other than that, I don't know of any legal recourse. The other option would be to court the press and see if they would take up your cause. A Denver news station might take it up as a story of the plight/flight from high Denver home prices. All other options would involve taking the law into your own hands.

Rivy S. · Answer

@Vicki Gleitz that sounds like a horrible situation. I don't have any advice for you on how to deal with the situation, but if you want to get more activity on this post, I would change the subject -- something like "Gang holdup in newly acquired property- Pueblo " would probably get more engagement. Just a suggestion. Good luck dealing with this.

Robert Herrera · Answer

@Vicki Gleitz It's been about 9 months since you made this post. How have things gone so far? Do you still own this house? Are you looking to sell?

Paul Hitchings · Answer

That is a horrific story. I think you need to move from the area with haste, no matter what the cost.

Alan Grobmeier · Answer

I'd get a real estate attorney and see if you can sue the bank for non-disclosure. You will have to prove that someone at the bank knew. Also, sometimes properties will be sold as-is, no spuds, no clu report. Horrifying. Good luck.

Robert Herrera · Answer

@Vicki GleitzOne thing you could do to keep them from EVER GOING BACK IN... I'm sure you know what GANG it is. They either wear RED, or BLUE. If they wear Blue, paint the house RED. They will never want to stay in a Bright RED HOUSE. If they are Red, Paint it BLUE. You just have to understand the psychology of these young punks. I used to live in pueblo and understand all to well what goes on there.

Vicki Gleitz · Answer

Robert Herrera. I can not sell it as it is a HUD owner occupied property and I have to live in it for a year without selling it. I could even be in violation of HUD because we are too afraid to live there. AND, our insurance company is talking about dropping us because we are not living there. We have put so much love, time, and money [over $20,000] into it. We only paid $40,003 for it, but even if we were allowed to sell it now for $60,000, that would not be enough for us to find a decent house to replace it. It won't help our family [except in satisfaction, which is kindof a big thing] but we have a friend in the media who would like to publicize how this happened not only to us, but many of our neighbors sufferred greatly [some even moved]because the particular bank who owned the property before we bought it not only never disclosed this, but that when neighbors called the police BEGGING for assistance that the police could do nothing because the bank did not want to press charges or go to the bother of evicting them [until they finally decided to sell the place]