My niece who was working for HUD told me lenders are requiring borrowers temporarily sign their deeds into the lenders name as security for the loan. It required I pay transfer taxes to have my deed put into the lenders name and that I reimburse the lender the cost it paid to have the deed put back into my name.
She waited until about 4 years to tell me I had no house to put back into my name and used the deed to take possession. She left no paper trail, the 2 legal documents I received was the Agreement she prepared and my my deed I signed into her name nothing after that. No verification the loan was paid why she opened a bank account in my housing development in South Carolina when she requested all payments be deposited. Said request prevented me from mailing the payment to her in Maryland where she lives. She refused to verify I paid the loan in full and I could not get the bank to verify because my name was not on the account.
She had told me I paid the loan in full she even things I paid her more than owed. However it was word of mouth so when she was ready to take posession she told 3 lies. One failed to put the house back into my name so she was going to sell it, two she paid Seven Thousand dollars of taxes and three she invested over Thirty-Five Thousand Dollars into the property when I asked to verify/produce receipts she cut off all communication. Presented the deed to my tenant of over 15 years and threatened eviction if they did not start mailing her the rent in Maryland.
I recently discovered it was illegal for a lender to place the deed of a borrower in their name, there is not law, my deed should have been held by a third party a lawyer or title company. My property was stolen with the stroke of a pen it cost her nothing. I paid the transfer cost to put it into her name, all her money back and it cost her nothing to get my paid for rental home, we were using to help support us. We are in our seventies and she never gave us any paper work to contest her actions, just the deed in her name and the agreement. No paper trail is this legal?
Can she just keep the home without a notice of intend or a reason, thought once the loan was paid she had to sign the deed back into my name? Shouldn't I have got a notice to intent of default, foreclose or something? Is this secret stealing of my home legal? Explain how someone can take your home without serving legal notice.
Was it legal to steal my home using deception on the date I signed the deed? Would she have to have notified me in writing she was not putting the deed back into my name? As the lender should she be required to notify me in writing why she is not putting the deed backing to my name and allow me to respond?
Where can I go for help? What attorney or government agencies will help me? what steps do I need to take?
How can I get my home back? What would you do if someone did this to you?
BJ, I like to think through a complex situation like this but will offer what I can tomorrow.
In the meantime, start gathering data on all the payments you made; make copies of any and all communication with your niece regarding this, make copies of the deed, and any documents, including your title policy. You'll need to provide them to the attorney who reviews the case and initiates fraudulent action against her.
It wouldn't hurt to consult with a local police department as well, as to me this is clearly financial fraud, and intent is obvious (intent is a component or proving fraud).
If I have time, I can check to see if I can find a law firm(s) that might handle this, or if there are any state entities to help you.
E.g., Michigan has an Elder Law agency to provide advice; if your state has one, it might also recommend an attorney to assist you. There also may be some special provisions in your state's laws for elder fraud, i.e., with an enhanced penalty for defrauding older folks.
There also may be a jurisdictional (venue) issue for an attorney to determine, given that you live in a different state from your niece.
This is wrong in so many ways and it will require an attorney to sort out.
Unfortunatly you signed your deed over, hopefully the loan agreement spells everything out regarding the deed transfer and such.
This is probably going to be expensive, the one thing that you have going for you is senior laws usually have sharp teeth. Financial exploitation of a senior is serious and that is how this story sounds to me.
Get a SOB attorney that will represent you like a piranha.
Make sure that your attorney sues for your legal costs. If she intentionally stole your property she needs to pay all your expenses for recovery.
You owned a property. You did not live in it, but rented it out to tenants. Who received the rent?
In [year] you took out a loan of $xx,xxx secured on this property.
Was the money for yourself, to pay for another house?
The loan was arranged by your niece. You signed the house over to your niece.
You repaid the loan over a period of [x] years.
The repayments were made to your niece?, who took responsibility for forwarding the payments to your lender.
Your niece also took responsibility for paying taxes on the property, totalling $7,000 over [x] years.
Your niece claims that she paid for the upkeep of the property, totalling $35,000 over [x] years.
Unfortunately, communications between yourself and your niece deteriorated and the relationship has soured to the extent that you are no longer in touch with her and she is refusing to provide you with any account of what has happened.
At the very least, you are entitled to a clear written account of all of the transactions that have taken place since all this began. But I have to say - to the outsider, just on the face of it, it sounds as though your niece set out with the intention of helping you to manage your property to your financial advantage and so that you could obtain an HUD home, and has perhaps paid for things herself which she ought to have explained properly, and since then has regrettably given up on explaining what she has done. She does have a duty to explain. She may not have done anything wrong, but if she won't explain how can you possibly know?
Do you now have somewhere to live? Are you in financial difficulty?