Dangers Of Owner Financing Your Home

One way people often purchase property or a home is through owner financing. This can be very appealing for a variety of reasons, for both the seller and the buyer. This is especially true right not as banks are not approving people for mortgages even when they have good credit and a have a well paying job. But buying property through owner financing must be done carefully. First, if a realtor is not involved it is a good idea to get an attorney to make sure all the legal documents are in order. A few years ago I heard about someone who paid monthly payments for their new home for a year only to be evicted and lose everything because of some little loophole the owner had included in one of the documents. An attorney would have caught it but the buyer never got legal council before signing all the papers. Then he was late on one payment and according to the contract everyone had signed, the seller was able to evict the buyer and keep all the payments that had been made. The buyer lost everything.

Last night on the news I heard about another issue that a person needs to watch out for when buying straight from the owner. A couple bought a mobile home knowing there were back taxes on the home that needed to be paid off. This time an attorney was involved and he promised and later claimed he did pay off all the taxes. So the couple was in shock when they got a letter saying the home was being foreclosed due to back taxes. In this case the couple contacted a local TV station who was able to get the situation resolved. Before buying property with back taxes on it, get proof all those taxes have been paid off. Or at least insist in writing that the back taxes be paid off by a specific date and insist on receiving a copy of the receipt proving it was paid off. Verbal assurance is not enough.

The last warning I want to share is what apparently happened to the widow who is selling the property I am trying to buy. My realtor shared with me that the couple bought the land directly from the previous owner and paid for it by owner financing. They never got a mortgage from a bank and apparently never hired an attorney. Once the couple paid off the property, the previous owner filed the proper papers to change title of the property. Apparently though he only put the title in the husband’s name, not in both the couple’s name. The wife assumed her name was on the title, which it should have been. If her name had been included on the title, she would have owned the property outright upon her husband’s death. Since her name was not on the title, not only did she not own the land, but his children from another marriage actually have legal rights to the land. This one little issue has created a huge mess. Fortunately for me, the children have signed papers relinquishing any claim to the property. Now I am just waiting on the Title Company to finish the Title search and approve the sale of the property.

Property Update and Visit

I thought I would provide an update on the issue with the property. First, last Thursday a friend and I took to the road and drove up to the property. We had planned this trip for over a week and unfortunately it turned out to be the day before the coldest day of the year, the next day the area actually received some rare snow. We spent about 30 minutes walking around the property, measuring the front of the mobile home (plan to build a deck) reminding myself what I had seen on my first visit, checking cell phone reception (no land-line hookup) and of course taking pictures. I had planned to do more on the trip but with the thermometer reading 32F (0C), we both wanted to get back in the car ASAP. I might add that my car (Toyota RAV4) has a really good heater/AC. Within seconds it was warming us back up.

Upon leaving the property we headed to the nearest town, Rocksprings TX. It took some asking, but we finally found the Chamber of Commerce. At least we found City Hall which is the closest thing to a Chamber Rocksprings has. They had a table with some literature on it and I was able to get a telephone book (about ½ centimeter thick and includes 10 towns). After our short visit there we headed back home.

Now for the update, I spoke with my realtor today. As of today it looks like I will be signing the papers for the property before Christmas. Probate for the will should be completed by the end of this week and next week the Title Company should have everything they need to do a final Title search before approving the sale of the property. It there are no more problems, I could possibly be driving up to the realtor’s office by the end of next week. Please keep this in your prayers. I am anxious to get moving.

Glitch

Last week I got a call from my realtor to inform me a glitch has occurred and we had to change the closing date on the property. It seems the seller’s realtor did not do her job properly. The first inkling there was an issue occurred when I received the Title Report. Apparently the land’s title is in the deceased husband’s name. The mobile home is in both of their names. For some reason the widow decided to put the property on the market before the will was probated. As of this writing it still had not been probated. Why the seller’s realtor did not ask more questions before placing the land on the market is unknown. All I can say is my realtor is mad and so am I. When I made the offer on the land and home, this issue was never disclosed. The seller did ask for an increase in option money from me, but there was no disclosure ever made concerning the issue with the will. In fact all communication pointed to a need to sell the land and home quickly so the widow could buy something else near her son. That constitutes fraud. Until the will is probated, this property should never been placed on the market, let alone agreeing to sell the property and home to me when she legally does not own title.

Last week I agreed to postpone the closing date until December 30. If the will is probated sooner than that, then I will be closing on the property immediately. But if the situation has not changed, then I will have no choice but to walk away. I cannot live in limbo not knowing if or when this issue will be resolved. Since I have already spent over $1800 related to the purchase of this property, I will have to consider taking legal action to recoup that money. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Hopefully the legal issues with the property will be resolved before Christmas. I really do want that property. Please pray God’s will be done in this issue.

It's About The Cross

Escrow

It has been a lazily Saturday for me. This morning I listened to Car Talk on the radio. Later I watched The New This Old House and a few cooking shows on TV. In between those activities I have read the latest Communities Journal and looked over yesterday’s mail, which included the Title Report on the property that is in escrow.

When I was a child my mother went to law school. Reading the Title Report reminded me why I never had a desire to attend law school. I am not a detailed oriented person. Even so, this is an important document so I carefully read every word. I do have a few questions that need addressing, but overall it looks okay.

If everything goes as plan, December 1st, at the latest, I will be signing papers on 20 acres of land and a few buildings. Then the real fun begins. Of course the first thing I need to do is move. But the real question is how long will I live on the property alone? I cannot turn 20 acres into a community by myself. It will take a lot of work to turn a rural piece of land into a place where people with MCS can come to live. Over the years I have tried to gather a group to help me make such a place a reality, but usually it seems like everyone is waiting for me to do everything. Well, so far I have done everything myself, but that now has to change.

The property comes with a 3 bedroom double wide mobile home. I am thinking of turning one of the bedrooms into an office. I will take one bedroom for myself. That will leave the third bedroom for someone else. There are also a couple camper trailers, one of which was turned into a cabin that someone could eventually live in. They both need cleaning and some work done to be livable, but once that is done I am sure someone (or a couple) will find it a nice little home. And of course there is plenty of room to pitch a tent, yurt, or another camper.

I need to build a deck on the front of the mobile home, something I am not capable of doing myself. I am also thinking of installing some fencing, planting some fruit and nut trees (peaches and pecans are major cash crops in Texas), planting a garden, maybe getting some goats (to use as lawn mowers) and chickens for meat and eggs. I hope to install a rain water catchment system and dream of one day installing alternative energy sources. I also think the quickest and cheapest way to make the property accessible to folks with MCS and who are currently displaced is to create a campground. That will require bathrooms/showers, and a laundry facility. I am going to need help to accomplish these projects. I also could use help with creating a new web site. The current site is outdated. So people with all types of skills are needed. Money is also needed to accomplish these goals. Since AOCCCI is a 501(c)3 organization, donations are tax deductable.

If you have an interest in helping with this project, whether you just desire to come out and spend a few vacation days, or you would like to live and work long term, please contact me. I would really like to talk to you. For the rest of you, tell others about this blog and the project that is happening in Texas.

Looking For God In The Texas Hill Country

Last time I shared I was getting ready to leave town. Well, bright and early Friday morning I finished packing my car and headed west on IH-10 into the Texas Hill Country. Fortunately I was driving out of town, whereas those commuting to work were going the other direction. So I had little traffic while on the other side of the freeway the traffic was moving at a snail’s pace.

As I shared last time I really did not know where I was supposed to go. I had the general area in mind but as I have joked, God never sent me an email telling me what county to look in. I honestly was prepared to spend five days, sleeping in my car in State Parks and visiting many realtors in many towns. I fully expected to return to San Antonio without finding anything specific but hopefully with a better idea of where God wanted AOCCCI to be located. I did not even bring the checkbook with me that has all the money in it. I just did not expect to need it.

What I expected to happen is not what happened at all. I went looking for God in the Texas Hill Country and I found Him. What occurred last weekend was just plain amazing. Basically, finding a needle in a hay stack would have been less amazing then what I witnessed in a 48 hour period.

When I drove into Kerrville, Texas I had two immediate needs. The first was to buy some window cleaner to clean my outside mirrors. When I saw a store I pulled in, picked up the window cleaner and a brief conversation with the only two employees in the store led me to the Chamber of Commerce, which turned out to be just down the street. Up until their suggestion it had not occurred to me to visit the Chamber of Commerce. Looking back though it was clear God was aiming His light in the Chamber’s direction and I followed it.

Once in the Chamber I picked up some free items that looked interesting and casually mentioned my need of a realtor. The young woman behind the counter said, “I would use this woman” and grabbed Ricki Eichler Real Estate’s brochure and handed it to me.

Once again God was shining His light and fortunately I followed. It would have been very easy for me to veer off God’s path as finding Ricki’s Eichler’s office was not easy. The woman at the Chamber neglected to tell me the highway her office is on gets a new name every few miles. I only learned this after stopping and asking for help. It took awhile but I finally did locate her office. In the process I spotted several other Real Estate offices but it never once occurred to me to stop at any of them. If I had stopped at a different Real Estate office, I would have missed God and/or wasted a lot of time.

Before walking into Ricki’s Eichler’s office, God clearly was directing my path but I had not yet recognized it. But it did not take me long to see God once I was speaking to Ricki. Most of the time when I tell people about AOCCCI, they think I am talking about people with chemical dependency, that is drug addiction. So I am very use to having to explain to people just what Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is. That did not happen when I shared with Ricki the goal of AOCCCI and what I needed in land. Instead Ricki informed me she had once suffered from severe allergies too and just how sick she had once been. I then told her I too had MCS and that God had healed me. She then responded that God had healed her too. At that moment I knew I had a realtor who understood. When I told her I write a newsletter on the mind/body/spirit connection, she said great. God’s lamp was clearly shinning.

Then it was time to get to business. I already knew finding an appropriate piece of land for AOCCCI was not going to be easy. Off and on during the year I had searched the Internet and had picked up a few Real Estate publications aimed at folks looking for rural property. Not once did I ever see anything that would work for me. Usually the land was either way to expensive and promoting huge luxury homes and/or fantastic views (which means not much usable flat land) or properties without any buildings and advertised for hunting. But one thing nice about using a realtor is they have access to multi listing services and knowledge of web sites I have not found. Ricki quickly accessed such web sites. As expected most of the listings in my price range involved only an acre or two or land without buildings, but several possibilities did show up.

Ricki had previous commitments that prevented her from showing me any properties that weekend, so she enlisted the help of another realtor in the office. Though I was shown a property that afternoon, both of them felt another property looked the most promising and Saturday morning shortly after 7:00 the realtor and I headed off for an hour drive to see the property. The seller’s realtor met us near the property and showed us the way. We drove down a caliches road making several turns before finally arriving at our final location. The property features a double wide mobile home, a cabin (which had been turned into a storage building), and a dusty old camper trailer. With 20 acres of flat land, there is plenty of room for a variety of needs.

As I viewed the property, I did not see any real red flags. The few issues I did see would be easy to resolve. The pluses way outweighed any negatives. And then there was the issue of location. On the drive out to see the property I could not help but notice that just down the highway was property that Lee Grover (co-founder) and I had visited back in the 90’s. Last summer I had sensed God telling me to look in the area that Lee and I had looked at property in the 90’s and now a decade later my realtor was taking me to that same area. Once again God’s lamp seemed to be shinning.

I have no idea what the record is for finding a client their future home, but I am sure I am near the top. Ricki and her team showed me two properties in all and I placed an offer on the second one I looked at. I am now in escrow.

Stay tuned for more of this adventure.

Following God's Lamp

It is 7:00 in the morning as I sit down at my computer to write. I have two loads in the dryer, my camera battery is charging, I am thinking about what I need to do today as I prepare for leaving town, possibly tomorrow. There is a lot I must get done before I can even think of taking off.

Before I purchased my car I had to take the bus everywhere or depend on others to take me where I needed to go. Both modes of transportation are slow. Both modes of transportation require waiting on others. So I thought once I got a car I would be able to get a lot more done in a much shorter amount of time, leaving me with more time at home to get work done. That has proven to be a fallacy. The truth is I seem to be even busier then I was before. Now some of the activities that are taking up more of my time are by choice. I am now able to attend the Tuesday night prayer meeting at church which I was unable to attend before due to lack of transportation. And the past two Tuesday’s I have picked up a gentleman who is unable to drive due to a stroke he had years ago. But most of my car trips are doing stuff that before I would have just put off until someone could take me. So I really am getting a lot more done, just not on the computer.

I went to bed pretty early last night and so I have been awake for several hours. As I laid in bed this morning thinking and praying, I remembered the first few years of my life with AOCCCI. The first year Lee Grover was in charge. In fact when I first met Lee and learned about this project he had in mind, I really was not interested. I occasionally gave him some female advice when he asked, but that was the extent of my involvement and I liked it like that. Then in April 1996 the Lord began to speak to my heart. Keep in mind I was still very ill with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) at the time, and this ministry did not even have a name yet. But there was no mistaking what the Lord was saying to me. Not in words, but to my spirit. Only weeks earlier Lee had come to the conclusion that his idea would have to be a Christian ministry, and now the Lord was telling me He wanted me to be a part of it.

The first 10 months of my involvement were a difficult time. During those months both Lee and I learned about the mind/body/spirit connection and I was healed of MCS. Before my healing I could only work a few hours a day, mostly typing. We occasionally took road trips, where Lee had to keep in mind my fragile health. We also talked on the phone a lot, as Lee lived in the Texas Hill Country, an hour drive north of me. Once God healed me of MCS a lot changed. I suddenly could do things I had never been able to do before, mainly because I now had energy and was not reacting to everything in my environment. I think the change in me was difficult for Lee to get use to. Anyway, I was healed around October of 1996 and after that our conflicts became even greater.

I will never forget the February day I received a letter in the mail from Lee. My mother was visiting me that week and I was living in a very small apartment at the time. The only private space in my apartment was the bathroom, where I suddenly spent a lot of time in prayer. The letter Lee sent me basically said God told him to resign from AOCCCI and at my convenience he would bring all the files and other information he had gathered. Though we had been in a lot of conflict, I was not prepared for this letter. I immediately went into panic mode. Since Lee and I were the only people working on this ministry, by default his resignation left me the one in charge. Lee had filed the paper work with the state, but had barely begun the work required to apply for non-profit status with the IRS. There was a ton of work to do and I had no idea how to do any of it. I had never taken a business or legal class in my life (unless you count sitting in on my mother’s law school classes whenever she didn’t have a babysitter for me). I had no idea what to do or even where to begin. On top of that, my mother, who was not a Christian and therefore never prayed, was visiting me. I could not share anything I was going through with her, she would not have understood. So, I started taking very long showers (private place where I could pray). My mom got tired a lot and needed naps, so I would go into the bathroom and pray during her naps. During the week my mother visited me I spent a lot of time in the bathroom praying. There literally was nowhere else I could go and close the door for privacy.

During that week of panic praying, asking God for help, Psalm 119:105 came to my mind.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.”

The Lord would light my path one step at a time. First He gave me peace. He was still in control. I do not remember the very first direction He gave me, but it was enough to let me know exactly what my first step was to be. The rest of the week that my mom was with me was a time of calm. There was not much I could do until she left, so I just relaxed. As soon as my mother was out of town, I contacted Lee and in a few days he delivered several cardboard boxes of files to me. In the days, weeks, months, and years to come I would continue to seek the Lord for guidance and He provided me with all the support I needed to learn how to do what I needed to do. With the help of a pro bono attorney, I got the 501(c)3 papers submitted to the IRS just in time. Along with all the other legal papers that needed to be completed. God is good!

I have changed and grown a lot since 1997 when the Lord put me in charge of AOCCCI. In many ways I am a totally different person having grown spiritually in ways I could never have imagined. But I am still having to learn to follow God’s lamp as He directs my path one step at a time.

Unless something comes up to change my plans, I intend to leave bright and early tomorrow morning where I will head towards Kerrville, Junction, and who knows where. My purpose is to go property hunting. I do not have enough cash to buy property outright but it is time to start looking. Through prayer, I know this is the direction I am to go. Before Lee resigned, the two of us took many trips in this direction and even considered two pieces of rural property which we were unable to purchase at the time. One piece of property was in Real County. The other was in Kimble County. This summer when I started asking the Lord where I should began my search for land, these two sites came to mind. I am convinced that somewhere in that direction, basically west of San Antonio off Interstate 10, is the property the Lord has waiting for me to discover. I have no idea if this property will be revealed to me on this trip or on another trip I take a year or more from now. All I can do is follow God’s lamp as it lights each step I take.

Please keep me in your prayers. Thanks.