When good people are faced with challenging dilemmas, sometimes, but not always do the “good’ things. I recently closed a transaction in Anaheim Ca. Like a lot of Anaheim houses for sale, this one was a short sale. I had never met the sellers. They had seemed to cooperate mostly with everything throughout the transaction, although I could tell it was not a happy time in their life from the beginning. My buyers were good people and understood the trying times the sellers were going through and did their best to be respectful and helpful. That all changed after we closed. The sellers moved out as requested one week before we closed. They had left some household items but said they would pick up the rest the following week. Everything was going according to plan. T
hen hours after we closed…The sellers moved back in! They changed the locks and moved couches, beds, and furniture back into the property. I took the deed, along with the escrow papers to the police to show evidence of ownership and asked for eviction assistance . Guess what? The police like to get involved as much as anyone else would. “Possession is 9/10ths of the law” was a quote they used a lot. My new homeowners were suddenly landlords and had to start the long process of eviction. That is right. The sellers had found a way to take advantage of the buyers in a big way. Even though I had written up my purchase agreement that the sellers had to move out before close of escrow(and they did), they moved back in and exploited California tenant laws. Think about this on your next short sale transaction. There are ways to protect your client and yourself if you expect it to happen.
A lot of Anahiem houses for sale are short sales and we handle quite a bit of them. This was a highly unusual transaction. 99 percent of the time we can avoid nightmares like this transaction because we can anticipate issues before they arise.
Read how this all ended. http://activerain.com/blogsview/3103257/a-short-sale-nightmare-in-anaheim-ca-part-2-the-conclusion
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