What my parents are dealing with

[prog]

My parents have been in a most unfortunate legal battle over the last year or two with a gentleman to whom they sold their Fairfield, Maine apartment building earlier this decade. He did this as part of a property-buying spree, using money which he didn't actually have, and a few years later the inevitable occurred, just like you've been hearing all over.

They don't want the building back - they would much rather retire from the property-management business - but they also don't want to have the house, which they still live in, default over to whichever entity would end up with it upon foreclosure. So they're fighting for it anyway.

Talking with me on the phone today, my mom said she'd heard that if you do an internet search for the guy's name, you see the message "landlord from hell", or something, and maybe I could look, and print it out and mail it to them? (My parents don't cotton to computers.) I quickly confirmed that, yes, the number-one Google hit on the guy is this horrified essay, which we can call the There's poop in the tub! document - sadly, the story is about my parents' building. Mom's mentioned the flea incident before. (Thankfully, they didn't get outside of that one filthy apartment, but jeez.)

Also in the top ten hits for the guy's name are this story about a different building, and this jawdropping forum thread where, halfway through, sockpuppets defending the guy and his partner start piling on. First, they pretend to be an earlier poster who has changed her mind, declaring the subjects to be paragons of humanity. When that proved ineffective (since the original poster was still following the thread and able to say wtf at this), they settled on anonymous sniping, blaming the victims for being so stupid and careless. There is an entertaining interlude before it wraps up where someone suggests calling a local TV news desk about it, and then a puppet says, "O hai! I'm from the TV! Plz stop calling me kthx"

So, yeah, dealing with these two folks is my parents' full-time occupation right now.

Comments

Wow

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

Sympathy to your parents. Reminds me of a story a few years ago when some guy "rented" an apartment in Boston to like 4 different couples... and he wasn't even the owner, just running a scam. The fact that you're legally in the right doesn't help much when you're down several hundred bucks you won't see for months at least and homeless with Uhaul wanting their truck back and not caring you don't have an apartment to put the stuff in... People like this seriously suck.

[keimel.livejournal.com]

Obviously, IANAL, but I do think that in such a case, the scumbags will cede the property by failure to show up in court. Persistence might pay off, even if they're (your parents) just showing up when the scumbags don't show up. Victory by default, as it were.

Sadness.

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but after this guy's been abusing it for however long, they get a worse piece of property than the one they sold, probably in a worse property than they sold it, and have to go through the hassle of selling it again. A loss all around compared to actually getting the money they were originally owed on the sale, I would imagine.

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

sorry, "probably in a worse property *market* than they sold it" was what that was supposed to say...

[keimel.livejournal.com]

Yep, I agree.

But at least they would get something with some value. Even in that neighborhood, the property itself (sans house) would have some value. IMHO, better than losing all of it completely because it sold off at a court ordered auction.

$.02. ;)

(which, btw, will be my opening bid for the property if I see it at auction)
^^
(intended as additional humor)

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess I was just thinking I wouldn't consider that a "victory" more like salvaging something from the loss.