Foreclosure and Eviction

One part of my job that I really hate is kicking somebody out of their house. Fortunately, I don't have to do it very often. But this was one of those times that I really didn't mind.

In 2009 I had a listing in a fairly exclusive area of town and had a buyer approach me about purchasing the property. However, he needed owner financing due to a tax lien he had against him. That was my first red flag and I did talk about it with my sellers, but they are very well off and were more than willing to do some seller financing. We were originally scheduled to close in August 2009 but July rolled around and the buyer didn't have all of his down payment yet and asked to extend. That was my second red flag.

On a side note, one thing I want to explain about seller financing is that it really isn't a good deal for the buyer. A seller is going to require a considerable cash down payment, will want a higher interest rate and will also want top dollar for the house. Same goes for a lease purchase situation. I honestly don't recommend them for either party.

After another lengthy discussion with my sellers, they agreed to extend the close of escrow by 3 months, so now we were supposed to close in November, 2009. Can you guess where this is going? November rolls around and he still doesn't have the money. Warning bells are going off in my head and everywhere else but the seller choose to stick with him. We didn't end up closing this house until April, 2010, almost a full year after he originally approached me and then only because the sellers finally got fed up and forced the issue.

To give you a little more background on the buyer, he was a doctor with a local family practice. He was dating a very nice lady and she ended up selling her car to get him the last of the money he needed. She was under the impression that she was moving in with him but after he had her money, he informed her that wasn't going to be the case and promptly broke up with her. You can't even begin to imagine the phone calls I got and am still getting from her as she is now practically homeless and no car.

So, the house deal closes, the sellers and I are happy to finally be done with it and ready to move on. But not so fast. 3 months later he stops making his house payments. I so wanted to tell my sellers "I told you so" but I bit my tongue and we started foreclosure proceedings on him.

The auction date was Dec 15th and the house reverted back to my sellers. Then they had to start eviction proceedings on him. I had to appear in court for them, since they live in California, and naturally the doc didn't show up. Last week I had to meet the sheriff at the house with a locksmith to kick him out. He was about 95% out of the house but the house was totally trashed. Filthy gross to the point where I didn't even want to walk thru or step on the carpet. Oven door was broken off, pool is green, mold growing in the bathrooms, the whole nine yards. I was almost sick to my stomach to see the condition of the house.

I arranged for my housekeeper to go in over the weekend and provided him with boxes for the stuff that was left in the house. We have to store it for about 3 weeks to give the doc the opportunity to pay up to get his stuff back, but I doubt that is going to happen. All the stuff got moved into the garage and by some miracle my housekeepers were actually able to get the house clean again. We are going to have to repaint and recarpet, so I am in the process of getting bids for that stuff.

Yesterday Ron and I went over to see what all was in the garage. The homeowners told me to deal with all of it, so that means we got first pick of the junk. We've been thru this before and have found some pretty good stuff in the past. I knew there were these wire shelf units I wanted for my Mom's garage, so those were definitely getting taken. While we were driving over Ron made a comment about how one of these times we might just hit the mother lode and find something really good somebody left behind.

Other than the shelves, not a lot of stuff to pick from. Plus it was so gross, I didn't want to sort thru it all. I did find boxes of office supplies that I can use, so that was nice. Ron got a few miscellaneous tools, a couple of gas bottles for the grill, step stool, stuff like that. We were about to wrap it up when he decides to pull down a few boxes that were up high and his prediction came true. We found something interesting all right. A gun! Totally creeps me out because I don't like guns. It's a handgun and Ron thinks it's brand new but he is going to take it over to the police department to make sure it checks out okay.

And as creepy as finding the gun was, it's not the worst thing we have ever found. Back when we were in the Navy and I managed apartments in San Diego, we found a dead body one time. But that's another story!