Veteran Family Needs Help Fighting Housing Theft

Hi! I'm Jenn and my husband, Donovan, is the Veteran. He served with the US Marine Corps, went overseas to Iraq, and has an Honorable Discharge. We purchased a house in October of last year from a friend, signing a purchase agreement with the seller in front of a notary. We had been house sharing, but the owner offered to sell it to us as no one in her family wanted it. As we were already living there, and it seemed like a good opportunity to buy a starter home we accepted. We began payments according to the terms right away, but had a delayed closing (written into the agreement) for January 2024 for personal reasons and to get the money together for closing costs. The seller offered to pay the closing costs so we could close faster and insisted on using her attorney and paying him to do the transfer. We accepted as she convinced us that as we were paying her more than she requested she considered the costs rolled into the payments. There were still delays but we reached January and were less than 24 hours from closing on the home we'd lived in since September when the seller informed us her lawyer said she didn't have to sell it us if she didn't want to so she was now refusing to sell it to us because she wanted to sell it to her grandsons! She flat out refused to return the payments that had already been made claiming her lawyer said she never should have signed the purchase agreement so the money we paid her doesn't count! She demanded we leave in 2 months, that we were to keep our money to save what we needed to move, and that she'd rent us a U-Haul!

It was the middle of winter and we were utterly blindsided, as we had specifically asked her multiple times before signing the sales agreement if anyone in her family wanted it, which she denied repeatedly (as yes we have multiple witnesses that are willing to testify including the notary).

We have miraculously found an attorney to take the case without a retainer, in part because our purchase and sale agreement is solid and additional evidence (including emails with the owner's own attorney) are all in our favor. Because everything legal still costs money, our attorney anticipates costs of $2500 and up expecting it will have to go to arbitration. The filing fee with the courts to block the sale to anyone else is $285 itself. The extra we are trying to raise is to cover anticipated closing costs once the court rules in our favor, in case she can't be made to pay as we don't have that specifically in writing (just circumstantial emails between her attorney's office and I indicating everything was all set).

Our Backstory:

We need this help after being slammed financially repeatedly this year in ways that are quite frankly worthy of a Hollywood screenplay. My husband works full time, but I'm currently stuck on disability (trying to find remote work to get off of it) and dealing with a back injury while moving this past summer. All of which leaves us with a limited income.

Last April, we had thought we were well positioned to buy a house when my husband found out the raise he'd gotten at work pushed us into a new tax bracket (yay us!) and causing my SSDI to be taxable and resulting in our anticipated tax return vanishing and us now owing the IRS. At the same time our then landlords decided to jack our rent up $340 per month and wanted an extra $340 for the security deposit! (They did it to almost everyone in the building not just us).

We had been playing catch-up from when Donovan was out of work for a week when Covid hit his office, followed by an eye injury that put him out of work for another week with no pay as he'd used up his sick time on Covid. When our savings were gone we reached out and got assistance from a veterans' group to catch up on the late rent. The landlords responded by terminating our lease. We were shocked but figured we'd had enough of living in an now exceptionally overpriced slum (my back was injured by tripping over a broken threshold they refused to fix for more than a year) it wouldn't hurt to rent for one more year elsewhere and started hunting. The awesome veterans' group who was helping us got us extra time to look for a place and offered to pay the first month's rent, security deposit and $2000 bonus to the new landlord. We found a place and we're doing paperwork when we were informed the veterans group ran out of funds and couldn't help with what they'd offered. We lost the place.

In desperation, and not wanting an eviction on our record, we put everything in storage and moved into a run down motel complex cabin barely bigger than our bed. It was creepy as heck, almost post-apocalyptic, moldly, the door didn't latch and there was no hot water. But it was cheap shelter, the roof didn't leak and we figured we and our pets were safe until we could find something else. That ended with a text a couple weeks later when the owner informed us they'd literally sold it out from under us and the new owners wanted everyone out in two weeks.

We tried buying a house, or even getting land and an RV, as the area rents had soared higher than a mortgage. With all the moves our nest egg was gone. We couldn't find an apartment we could afford with heat, and there were no homes available in the area that were both affordable and would pass the VA Home Loan inspection. We couldn't move out of the area because of Donovan's job being a traditional "in office" position (no remote option).

Everything looked pretty bleak when on September 1st a then acquaintance offered us a place to stay for free until we could save enough for a deposit to buy a home. It was the best news we'd had in ages! The house was just a 15 min commute to his job, and we had heard of the individual having done something similar for another couple a year prior. While it seemed too good to be true, we didn't have any other options with winter coming fast in New England so we gratefully accepted.

We had 3 wonderful days of starting to settle down and feel like things were going to work out. Then the owner shockingly went back on the original offer and started demanding money. With winter on the horizon and being afraid of being homeless again we paid. It was more expensive than the cabin but cleaner, and safer (we thought). We figured we'd save through winter and move on.

Just a week later, my workaholic Marine comes home sick and we end up in the ER with him being diagnosed with diabetes. This was an utter shock as he has a major anti-sweet tooth (so much so that I could never even make him a birthday cake). Again we're hit with a other week out of work trying to get his blood sugar stabilized and we're broke again.

The hits just kept coming and we found out that the same veterans group that had told our bank they would cover two car payments during the summer failed to make the payments (or notify us prior) and we were about to lose our only car. Thankfully, a wonderful person at the bank had records of everything and could see we'd made all the other payments since (in the belief we were up to date) and has worked with us so the car is safe and only $2k from being paid off.

It was then October, and out-of-the-blue the owner of the house offered to sell it to for the tax assessment as no one in their family wanted it. The house needs a lot of work (even the town has it listed in poor condition) making it ineligible for a VA Home Loan, but as the owner owned it outright (no pre-existing mortgage) we could pay her directly.

We honestly hesitated at first, given the owners prior flip of terms from "free" to "pay me weekly" when we first moved in, and recognizing the amount of work it was going to need. But the owner was adamant they were serious and was willing to make it all legal so we signed a legal purchase agreement with a notary and started making payments believing that we'd bought our first home.

After the signing the seller offered to pay all closing costs & lawyers fees so we could close faster and not have to save for it. Because we offered them a bit more than her requested purchase price (it literally made the numbers easier) she considered it rolled into the sale. We agreed. While we waited for her to set the closing date with her attorney we continued to make weekly payments as laid out in the purchase agreement and put all our extra money into essential repairs & prep for bigger repairs. That was until the owner demanded we make no more repairs until it was in our name. We were concerned but as the close was scheduled for right after the holidays we figured things could wait and if it made the seller happy, why not?

We were literally talking like good friends all weekend as though the closing was happening Tuesday morning, when she called us Monday to cancel. We have put everything we have into tools, equipment, supplies for rebuilding, even owing a friend for use of their Home Depot card when the molding caulking in the bathroom revealed a bigger issue. There's no extra available for this fight, but we have no choice. There's no other housing available to us. Our money is tied up in bank checks we've submitted through our attorney that she keeps returning while telling anyone who will listen that we aren't paying her! She is effectively trying to steal our home from us so she can make more money re-selling it!

Please help us! It's hard to ask but we're just at such a shock and loss right now that I don't know what else to do. The last straw was her leaving a voicemail for us taunting us that we were going to be homeless before hanging up.