My home burned down. We were looking for a new mobile home. My husband stopped in at this mobile home lot in town. They said they could help us get a new mobile home and it was even bigger than our last one. We were desperate for a place to live, so this was a dream come true.
We signed the note for $600.00/ month for 5 years. We paid $7000.00 down. After several problems setting it up and repair issues, we were finally settled. A year later we go to the office to see if we could have a two week extention on our payment only to find the furniture was gone and the doors were locked. The sign on the door give payment instructions to the tenants in their mobile home park but left no instructions for morgages nor did it leave a contact address or phone number.
We weren't sure what to do so we waited for the insurance guy that had an office in the building to open. Asked him what happened to the other company. He said they had just come in and moved everything out. He said that their attorney might be able to help us and give us his name & number. Strange Huh?
When we contacted the attorney, he knew nothing about them having a mortgage for a mobile home nor did he have any information about us at all. He said we could bring our payment to him though. We thought that it was strange and things weren't adding up. Why hadn't we gotten a notice of change in payment address or any correspondence from them and why didn't their attorney know anything about us? So we asked some people we trusted and they said that they wouldn't make a payment to anyone that they had not authorized. So we didn't.
Unfortunately, we had some expenses come up that depleated our savings, so when we recieved a call from a guy saying he worked for them and was wondering about when they would recieve their payments, we had no money left. We also were aware that they had several disgruntled empoyees that they had ripped off as well. So we weren't sure if this guy really worked for them or not. He wouldn't give us an address of a new office to make payments but was willing to meet us in Ellettsville to recieve a payment that he a negotiated with me on the phone. He thought that meeting us there would be closer but we live in Lawrence County, so Bloomington is closer. This gave us pause because he was negotiating payments and expecting to recieve them, but didn't know where we lived. Hmmm!
My husband did agree to meet him. Told him we had cash and that we would need a reciept when we gave him the money. When they met he did not have a recipt book and would not make a recipt or give a location to go to so that we may get a recipt.
Eventually after several months we got a summons to got to court for eviction procedings. We ended up getting a lawyer, he told us that he could fight eviction but that they would just file forclosre on us and unless we could pay they would win. So we won the eviction but were served with an eviction notice again about six months later.
The attorney filed a suit against them for it and we won the maximum which unfortuately the attorney got. It was through these court dates that we discovered that they had been declaring us a renters and that our payments had been rent. They had not reduced the amount of our loan at all. Then we found out that they had never even titled our home. There was no way that we would have ever got our home paid for and legal. Then several months later we were served with papers on a forclosure. However, the venue was wrong so it got dropped. Eventually, we were served forclosure papers in Lawrwnce county.
We were very fortunate that their was a local attorney willing to help us and after several years and several court cases we were able to negotiate a settlement and got the home and title.
During this process we uncovered so many illegal acts committed by these people, Larry and Linda Sykes. We were told that the county did not have the money or resources to investigate this. I found this almost as criminal as Buyers only. Theyt had scammed so many people and contractors that they had to file bankruptcy.
They left many people homeless and many people lost their savings. We were lucky. Others did not have the same fate. These people malicously scammed people and not only did they get away with it, but they are operating a new Real estate business in Indianapolis now.
I have only given you a brief outline of what happened to us, and as tragic as it was others are still trying to recover, while these people get to live happy ever after ruining more lives as they go.
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