Franchiser filled lawsuit, worried of loosing rentals.

[Mike Eisenhut]

Just today we found out (my mother and I) that a franchise she signed a contract with back in 2006. Just filed to take her to court for $40k of the remaining contract. Very long story short. The Franchise owners started new plans that were never in the original contract by taking votes. With that came various other strange fees and eventually to the point. Many of the franchisee owners requested an audit of the franchiser (as per allowed in the contract). They never followed through with a audit request and eventually end with many of the franchisee's just flat out walking away from the contract. We decided to do the same. (Yes, I understand not a very smart thing) However, they became so unprofessional that it ended in them making very vulgar and threatening calls. So bad that actually one of the franchisees had to file a restraining order.

Now fast forward to this month. We find out they hired an attorney to take us to court over the remaining balance. We have kept many good documents and feel that we may have a chance at beating this case. However, there is always a chance we can lose.

Our fear is they see the rental properties and are going to try and get ahold of those for damages.

I have already looked into the homestead exemption for this state and understandably there is not much that is protected there. The properties are under her name (also know this is bad). From what I understand, once a court case has been filed. Any transfer of ownership or changes to the house deed. Can be undone by the judge for this case?

I know there are many slip-ups here! Should have voided the contract legally and should have made sure the properties were in a LLC or some kind of trust. Unfortunately, it looks like we acted to slowly. However, I was in slight hope there is something we could do to protect these properties? Mom had almost all of her retirement due to the economy. The franchise business was going to be a good hope. Now it has come down to the rental properties being the last hope.

This is no doubt a tuff question to answer without knowing all the details of the story. However, since there are many others here with rental property and some even experts! I was hoping someone may have a direction we can shoot for. If she does end up loosing the case.

Thanks guys for your time!

I really appreciate it...