My Friend/ Real Estate Broker STOLE my house, and is now living in it!!!! (auction, foreclosed)
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For several personal and business reasons I found myself facing forclosure on my home. While I had been working with my bank and other agencies my auction date was becoming imenent. I knew that there was a good chance I would be turned down because my business has significant assets (On Paper) but during this recession has been bleeding money. I was in the process of looking for a buyer, and found one, and had negotiated and set a closing date for Oct 15 to sell my business. But the Auction date for my home was July 10. So my gameplan was try to save my home in various programs, if that failed File personal bankruptcy buy myself time to get funds from my sale of my business. Then have time to sell my home properly, and with the forgiveness of my secondary mortgage I was looking after fees etc about $140k.
Morning of auction a friend of mine who is a commercial investor/ Broker called me and said I saw your house for auction and think we should go down to the courthouse. " I don't usually buy residential real estate especially if it's currently owner occupied. There are to many things that the owner can do to delay and damage the investment. However I would buy the house at auction. You agree to help me get the house ready with the tradespeople ready to sell, and you agree not to do anything that will delay the sale. We sell the house and do a 60/40 split on the profits your 40% is about $90k. NC has a 10 day upset period after auction were people upset your bid. It was also the last opportunity for me to file bankruptcy.
For the next 30 days I busted my ass getting the house ready, dealing with trades, being his ***** boy. Even redoing floors with my GF on weekends while he went away. Then 2 days after he closed on the house with the bank we sat down with his real estate agent he signed all the engagement papers. And the agent put up the For Sale sign.
Came home that night and saw the realtor sign had been removed and an email from my piece of **** Freind saying we need to talk. Called him next morning and he said " he has changed his mind, I am going to keep the house, and our deal is not a good deal for me. And there is no way I am paying you 90k. I was doing you a favor I'll give you 20k for your efforts but our original deal is not good for me." He dangled this carrot in front of me not to file for forclosure, and do the work to get the house ready for sale, and when everything is done he then realizes its not a good deal.. I have text messages and voice recordings of everything iand he doesn't deny even now that he made the deal he just says its boy a fair deal and he isn't going to pay me. BTW. Never saw $20k he promised.
So I'm suing him for breach of contract. We have nothing in writing except text messages, recorded calls, and several mutual friends he talked to about our deal.
What can I do?? Also isnt there rules of conduct and laws in real estate where he is a Broker.
So now he is living in my house and I am in an apt.
Those are the 2 best I could come up with before 5am on a Sunday.
Honestly, those are the two best choices you have since you stated you have nothing in writing.
Since your friend is the sole owner of the house, they don't have to do anything for you. I don't think you have much of a case to get the money or the house back and you will be out the money for the lawyer. Finding a lawyer will be costly upfront because they know if you loose, its likely you will declare bankruptcy and include them as well.
On the bright side..... It's possible the realtor could lose their license in that state after the court case is done.
Yup, there is no other advice that has merit beyond see a real estate attorney. It won't help you monetarily but, if the guy is a member of a Realtor association, you can talk to them about filing a complaint. I'm not sure from reading your post but my impression is that your house was foreclosed and sold at auction, is that right? I have to believe that the buyer had to sign something saying that this was an arms length transaction and you can prove it wasn't so you might talk about that with your attorney, too.
You don't have a legally enforceable contract that I see. It has to be in writing, signed by both parties, and have consideration. In Oregon consideration is the offer, but some states consider consideration the earnest money. You need to talk to an attorney to see if you have legal recourse, but you certainly can file a complaint with the real estate board for NC. They will care about the text messages and such, but they can't get your money back for you. They can only revoke a license.
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