All Forum Posts by: John Jackson

@Wayne Brooks I believe there's good reason to be suspicious something untoward occurred somewhere, yes.  Finding it, and proving it, that's a totally different question.  And definitely, I'm digging around in these questions because of a deal I didn't get.  If it appeared obvious there was no reason to be suspicious of anything that was done, I wouldn't be interested in the effort to dig.  But this was a very big deal to me, and there seems like good reasons to believe numerous parties in it had something to gain by bending or breaking rules.  I'm just doing what I can, as a total amateaur, to satisfy myself that I've examined every hair on every head of everyone involved.  As much as I'm legally entitled to, at least.

@Russell Brazil @John Thedford - Thank you, gentlemen.

Does anyone know, can a house legally be on the market, or put on the market, if foreclosure proceedings have begun against its owners?

When a realtor puts a house under contract (that's for sale), does or can that have the legal effect of halting foreclosure proceedings against its sellers, by their lien holder?

Would it be illegal for a realtor to put a house in a status of 'under contract', if there wasn't really a legitimate contract signed for it?

Are these kinds of contracts strictly confidental information, that only a court can order to be produced, for investigation?

Does a realtor have to take a deposit in order to put a house for sale under contract?  Is there any specification for the amount such a deposit must be?  Does the deposit money have to be placed in escrow?  If it does, is the history of that handling of the deposit money records that only a court can order to be produced for investigation?

Are there professionals out there who specialize in investigating real estate deals that have concluded, when an outside party suspects things done in the deal may have broken ethics, rules, or laws?  If so, what are those professionals referred to as, and how do you find them?  Would it be a specialty attorney?  A private investigator?  A banking industry regulatory organization?  A real estate industry regulatory organization?

For any who remember the last thread I had a question in, yes, these are still questions stemming from the same property as in that discussion.  I've concluded that no, there doesn't appear to be any direct basis for me to pursue trying to get that sale and mortgage unwound.  And because of that, I have no more expectations that I have a chance at getting that house right now, at all.

What I'm considering now is whether or not the realtor who conducted the sale did do anything wrong.  If he did, I will see what I can do to have him held accountable.  I'm sure I'll get some responses here that denigrate that as revenge seeking.  Hardly.  If you don't think wrongdoing should be punished whenever possible, then you're probably someone who wouldn't be against wrongdoing if you found it would help you accomplish something you otherwise would be prevented from accomplishing.  And it's exactly that kind of attitude that supports and sustains future wrongdoing.  I support actively holding wrongdoers accountable, whenever possible.  It would make the world a better place for everyone.

@Vera Kirrane Thank you Vera.  I think one of the parts of this that hurts most is I've uncovered information about the house's early history.  It's pre and post revolutionary war stuff.  And the house survived and stayed in the same family from 1754 all the way until 2012.  And no one spoiled it in all that time.  I don't think that could have happened without the lineage of family members it passed through all recognizing its importance and its irreplaceable value.  And then finally it landed in the hands of a family member who fell down in protecting his heritage and his legacy.  It's a real life tragedy.  There definitely isn't anything else like it anywhere in the vicinity.  Yes, there's lot's of old homes, some as old as this one.  But they are not nearly as significant in the role they played back in that early history.  I've seen two separate references to this house talking about how it had a wooden stockade built around it, in the mid 1700's sometime, so that people from the surrounding area could come there to take refuge from indian attack.  I'm not sure if there was any aspect of that associated with the revolutionary war or not, too.  It just blows my mind that the home sat and say, without ever successfully gaining the attention and preservation it deserved.

@Matt K. I just got done checking with the state of Massachusetts Historical Commission.  A near miss.  This home is in their database.  It was inventoried at some point for its potential.  But unfortunately it was never placed on the national register of historic places.  Another disappointment, but that appears to be the way everything has gone with this.  Here's the link:  http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=MNT.51

@Matt K. Thank you Matt.  I did try some of that already.  The town has a historical society and I got in touch with them.  They pretty quickly came back with they couldn't do anything about it.  But checking in with the State of MA is a good idea, too.  I will do that, thanks :)

@Brian Pulaski Thanks Brian, yes, I have been mulling over ideas like that, too, and it's definitely in part due to some of the things said by the people here.

@Vera Kirrane You're closer to what this is about for me, yes. This house my issue is about, it's 2 miles from my wife's veterinary clinic. We want to be located nearby. My job is in Northampton and my children go to school there. The reason I came up with the idea to purchase the note came from when I learned that the sellers were effectively holding the house for ransom. They were $300K in arrears on their mortgage and property taxes, and they were holding out on selling unless they got $40K of any proceeds to walk away with. If I were made of money I might have considered paying. But I'm not. After ten years of paying our mortgage on our existing home, and savings, that was just about right for making the acquisition and restoration of this home work, if we could be acquired for a price that fit prudently into a calculation that accounted for an estimation of its value in good condition, minus when it would cost to bring it into that condition from where it was at, which was bordering on condemnation. And I'm not a professional REI. This was a once-in-a-lifetime investment situation. Which doesn't make it any less valid of an REI objective than for someone who does REI for their income. For what its worth, I've been watching listings ever since I became focused on this property. It just so happened though that I hit the time in my life where I really needed to take on looking for a new home at a time when this one I found was already too far gone into the wrong hands than I seem to have been able to go to save it, and preserve and value it for what it is, and was. It seems well on its way to being destroyed now, in that regard. I think that makes us all just that much poorer because of it.

@Brian Pulaski I don't think they have a VA loan anymore. The VA loan was discharged when they obtained the new loan. The new loan didn't have the VA rider box checked. Just the planned unit development box. Am I interpreting the meaning of that information correctly?

@Rick Decker I appreciate the sentiments, and don't disagree with most of them.  The one I do is the idea here, and in general, of anyone telling themselves something 'wasn't supposed to be'.  I don't think the universe operates like that.  I don't think anything is or isn't supposed to be, etc.  Life is always what we choose or choose not to make it, subject of course to external factors all the time.  If I don't get my family in that house, it was just because I happened to come along with too little, too late.  But I didn't know it was there before it came along.  So I can't really be too mad at myself or anyone else about that.  But if I was able to find that people cut corners that aren't allowed to be cut in order to get that property, that sale, their commission, etc., and I can prove it, I'll hang that on them for all it's worth.  I was ready to go for this property because my wife and I have been paying our mortgage and taxes honestly for the past decade.  That legitimately earned equity was going to let us make this next step happen for us.  The people who have the property now?  They're ripping you and me off right now.  That property in DC is in a Federally subsidized, planned unit development.  They got it brand new, at a steep discount.  Now it's valued on paper at more than twice that.  And you'd think they'd find the gratitude to at least go the whole 10-years on their covenants with the DC housing authority, to occupy it for that period, and not rent it out.  Instead, they're cheating there and they participated in cheating here that had the effective result of harming me, too.  If they hadn't done that, there weren't any other buyers lining up to try and rescue this property from the other people who were holding it, and their mortgagee hostage.  I am taking your point though, and other people's, about carefully considering the dynamic it will setup between me and anyone who was taken down in some way for me exposing it, if that's anything I end up doing.  Versus trying to make some sort of deal with them that make nice.  I might seriously consider that latter strategy more if I actually had the financial muscle to flex.  But I don't.  My wife and I work and live within our means.  We're not poor and we're definitely not wealthy.  I would characterize us as fortunate.