Help with a complicated case - Posted by Julie Barnes

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
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Posted by Marc Donovan on September 13, 2005 at 18:34:23:

Go to the courthouse and look in the public records for a Lis Pendens in your county. Just copy it word-for -word changing the names and the legal description (look at the deed for this, its on file there too). They are very simple documents since they don’t provide any details.

This will cloud the title, but if you don’t have a valid claim, you may be sued for slander of title. You need to be able to show that you had an agreement.

More to that, if you don’t have anything in writing, you don’t have a valid claim. The Statute of Frauds, which is law in all 50 states, requires that any agreement concerning real estate must be in writing to be valid. This goes back to King George in the good ole’ days. He was getting shafted for property taxes so he made everyone write down who owns what and voided verbal agreements. Long story short, no verbals.

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Help with a complicated case - Posted by Julie Barnes

Posted by Julie Barnes on September 12, 2005 at 13:51:25:

I have a real problem here I do not know how to handle. I went into a verbal contract with my daughter to buy some property in california in 1998. The property was put in her name because my husband abd I did not have the credit to buy this property on our own.

We have made every payment on this property and every repair and have proof of all of that. Now she is trying to take the property away from us and sell it and get all the money from the sale. She has also tried to evict us and failed.

Please help i can explain more if need be I need legal help really bad I don’t know what to do.

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Re: Help with a complicated case - Posted by Tom-FL

Posted by Tom-FL on September 12, 2005 at 21:13:01:

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t follow CA too much. I think you need to clarify a few things before anyone could answer you though.

You said: “We have made every payment on this property and every repair and have proof of all of that.”

Did you make all these payments directly to the mortgage and to the vendors/contractors? Or did you send it to her and then she sent it to the final destination. This includes property taxes as well. (It looks better for you if you made all the payments directly).

Was there ever a lease involved? We don’t want her claiming to be a landlord.

Speaking of that, why did the eviction fail?

If she is actively trying to sell out from under you, then you should immediately hire an attorney and get a Lis Pendens (Latin = “Litigation Pending”) filed against the house. This will prevent a sale from taking place until your issue is worked out. What happens is that any buyer will get a title search as part of the process. The title co will see the Lis Pendens in the public record and will not insure title. The buyer’s lender will then refuse to finance the deal till the matter is resolved. This gives you some breathing room.

As it stands now, you could one day just get an eviction notice from the “new” owner. At that point, it would be much more difficult for you. Your complexity level would go from maybe a 2 or 3 to at least an 8. You really don’t want any 3rd party buyers getting in the middle of this.

What you are probably looking at is a Suit to Quiet Title. Basically all that is, is “let’s figure out who owns the thing”.

Belated advise: You should have gotten quit claimed onto the title as soon as she closed on the house. Or, maybe it would have been enough for her to co-sign your loan.

Well, at any rate, good luck with it.

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Re: Help with a complicated case - Posted by Julie Barnes

Posted by Julie Barnes on September 13, 2005 at 13:39:57:

ok first of all yes my husband and i payed the lenders themselves no money has passed from my hand to hers. All the lenders on this deal know me by first name and are very aware of the original deal between my husband and I and my daughter.

There was never a lease involved because it was not ever a landlord tennant agreement. The agreement was we were the real owners of the property and it was just in my daughters name on paper.

the eviction failed because i responded to the unlawful detainer with my side of this story and she had the detainer dismissed.

Yes she is actively trying to sell it there is an escrow open now.

Thanks for the advice but i thought since she was my daughter i could trust her. Never in a million years would i have thought she would pull something like this.
I will look into this Lis Pendens is there a place i can find the forms for that ? If you need more info let me know

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Re: Help with a complicated case - Posted by Tom-FL

Posted by Tom-FL on February 19, 2006 at 20:30:47:

I tried mailing you directly but you have some sort of filter on your mail not allowing it through.

Hi Sunshine,

I’m so sorry for the delay. I just haven’t been able to sit and write. I also don’t have a whole lot of ideas for you at this time. As I said before, a lis pendens is part of a law suit. It is filed to indicate the property is the subject of a suit. You cannot file one until you sue her.

Suing her might not be a bad idea at this point. Even if you go pro se (no lawyer), you could buy some time and tie up the title to the house. Go on Google and enter “pro se” (including quotes) in the search box. Lots of info and forums there. Check into bankruptcy as well. That puts a stop to all collection activity until the court sorts things out.

It’s pretty amazing that in your situation you can’t find any relief. The message boards on CRE are full of postings by landlords who sold on lease/option and the tenant/buyer never paid a dime and in the end takes the house away from the owner claiming “equitable interest”. That means that they should be considered owners because they made a deposit and perhaps a few payments.

It would seem in CA that there would be a lot of lawyers just waiting for a challenge like this. Call the local attorney referral service. I don’t know your financial situation but some are willing to work pro bono (without fee). In fact I think it’s required by the bar association that a certain amount of work is pro bono. Search the web for CA based “victim advocates”. Call the ACLU. They probably can’t help directly, but could refer you on. Get in touch with all the local media. Here, we have “Probelm Solvers”, “Help Me Howard”, “Action Line”, “Neighbors 4 Neighbors”. They would love to get ahold of a story like this and take the cameras out to hound your daughter. Perhaps some attorney watching would think you do indeed have “equitable interest” and would be willing to intervene.

Never forget, the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Do not go down quietly.

If you could mention your city and county, I might find some resources on the web.

Good luck to you and your husband.

Tom

Sunshine wrote:

tom i need some more help i never did find out how to do a Lis Pendens can you help me with a copy of one. Since i last wrote u I have gone to court on a unlawful detainer and the judge would not use any of my evidence she said because we did not have a written contract it was not legal so i am as of now evicted and only have 3 weeks to move I am disabled and will most likely end up in the streetsI have no where to go and no money but my daughter will not give me more time and i have major health issues that if i end up homeless I will be in trouble and may die i need electricity for some of the machines i use to sustain life is there anything i can do ? I cannot find a lawyer here where I live to take my case

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Re: Help with a complicated case - Posted by Tom-FL

Posted by Tom-FL on September 13, 2005 at 23:07:51:

Have a look at this article, and then get lawyer shopping, immediately. There is no time to waste.

http://www.creonline.com/money-ideas/mm-055.html

As to the Lis Pendens, it basically is a document recorded in the public record of your county outlining the Plaintiff, Defendant(s), Case #, Property legal description, and the reason the suit was filed. The attorney records it after siling suit at the courthouse.