We are purchasing a house (owner carry) from a man who said he has an owner carry contract with the legal owner so it is a sublease. The legal owner after 2 months is telling us that he (the man who sold us the house) does not have any legal ties to this house and was only the caregiver. We are still in the house and spent thousands of dollars remodeling the house because the condition that it was in was not livable. The legal owner is threatening us and saying that we are trespassing. The man still claims he has a legal contract with the owner but has yet to produce it. We also have a legal contract with him, pictures of before and after, receipts and many witnesses. We have an appointment with an attorney next week but I am unsure if we should be getting out of this house now since we now are being told that there may not be a legal contract between the legal owner and the man who sold it to us. We also gave him money as a down payment. Can we press criminal charges? Wouldn’t this be theft? What should we do now? I cannot continue to wait for the police to remove us or could they?
Tom_V said:
Nov 01, 09 at 5:32 pmWow - a complicated situation to be sure. I’m glad you are seeing an attorney.
As long as you assert a legal right to live in the house and have something reasonable to back it up with (like the agreement with the seller), the police will likely consider this a civil matter, and won’t arrest you for trespassing. The owner would then have to try to evict you in a civil action to get you out. Ultimately, unless he is lying about having given the seller the right to sell the property, he will be successful in eventually evicting you.
However, the owner is not entitled to unjust enrichment. The improvements you made to the house, if substantial and if unarguably improvements, are compensable. You may be able to recover some of the cost of the improvements from the owner, especially if he know you were making the improvements, depending on the tort laws in your jurisdiction.
The seller, if he is lying about having been given the right to sell the house by the owner, has committed criminal fraud. If he is merely mistaken about it, and acted in good faith, he is probably not guilty of fraud. In either case, though, he would be civilly liable to you for any damages you sustained, and for the return of your down payment. However, this will only help you if he he has any money to repay you. A judge can enter a judgment, or order restitution, but if the guy has no money you are out of luck. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, as the saying goes.