Unwitting Family Gets The Boot Six Months After Paying $11K Deposit On Home "Purchase" From R/E Agent Now On Trial On Fraud, Forgery Charges

In Kitchener, Ontario, The Record reports:

• [Natasha] Embro said she and her former husband, David, had been looking for a house, but didn’t have much money for a down payment, when they saw a newspaper advertisement for assumable mortgages requiring no approval.

• [Real estate agent Steven] Stojadinovich(1) took them to three places and they agreed to buy the Wooley Street house for $189,900, with an $11,000 down payment, without negotiating the price or knowing the interest rate on the mortgage. “We were just excited to be able to get a house,” Embro said.

• Naïve and inexperienced, she said, the couple didn’t use a lawyer and began paying Stojadinovich in cash after leaving their rented quarters and moving into the house with four children under 10 in the fall of 2005.

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• The eviction notice came without warning about six months later, leaving the couple scrambling to load all the belongings they could into a truck while officials secured the house behind them. [...] Embro said they lost their $11,000 “down payment” and all the money they gave Stojadinovich while thinking they were paying a mortgage.

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• The legal owner of the house was really Ryan Dewulf, a young friend of Stojadinovich. He testified he thought it had been sold until he began receiving notices about mortgage arrears. Dewulf was involved in all three of the house deals, but said he trusted Stojadinovich to handle the details. He was eventually sued in relation to the transactions and had to declare bankruptcy. Shown several documents in court, Dewulf said he had never seen them before and that the signatures on them weren’t his.

For the story, see Family evicted after thinking they had purchased house.

(1) Steven Stojadinovich, 49, is on trial after pleading not guilty to fraud and forgery charges related to three house deals in 2005 and 2006.