We were looking to buy rental income property in Hot Springs Arkansas. A realtor friend told us of a rental income condo owned by BJ Woolverton, her boss and then owner and principal broker of Hot Springs Realty Company.
In meeting Woolverton, he told us that he owned the condo, it had been rented for a year at $1200/mo, had its own boat slip, and he wanted $137,000. We told our agent (Woolverton's employee) to offer $130,000 which he accepted.
Turns out all Woolverton owned was an exclusive right to sell (3 days earlier) with the true owners. He then gave the real owners a $500 deposit to buy the condo for $120,000 but conveniently neglected to mention this to us.
Woolverton then opened escrow with Garland County Title on 8 December and we opened, unknown to us, a second escrow on 12 December for our purchase. When we asked the Title Company about Woolverton, they told us he was 'rock solid' and they gave us a preliminary title stating Woolvertons' "fee simple" ownership.
One problem. The prelim title is dated 13 December and Woolverton didn't close his escrow until days later. But this fake title kept us in the dark as to what was really going on. Oh, I forgot to mention. There never were any renters, no rental of the condo, no right to sell the boat slip, and so on.
At the Escrow closing, we were told that the County was tardy in its record keeping and that's why Woolverton's name was not on the records. All of this right in front of Carol Sikorski of Garland County Title. It is noteworthy that Ms. Sikorski does all of Woolverton's escrow work and now we know why.
We complained to the Arkansas Real Estate Commission which is comprised mainly of real estate professionals. Despite their bias, even they had to find this crook guilty of something (misrepresentation). Then the Commission really THREW THE PAGE AT HIM. His sentence? 12 hours of ethics school.
Given the lawsuit by American Home against ERA Rushing realty, our experiences, and the purchasers of other condos with all manner of defects, this is the wild west (east?) of real estate and Woolverton is Jesse James.
The above didn't begin to cover all of Woolvertons' shenanigans such as backdated documents, forgeries, fake disclosures, etc. All of this for another time. Thanks.
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