Naive Homebuyer Finds Himself Fleeced Out Of $15K+, Then Gets The Boot After Buying Mobile Home; Use Of Owner Financing, Informal Title Transfer Allows Seller To Unload Premises Onto Naive Buyer Without Disclosing Existing Lien

In San Juan, Texas, KRGV-TV Channel 5 reports:

• A Rio Grande Valley man said he paid over $15,000 for a home he thought would be his. Months later, he said police came knocking on his door and told him he had to get out.
  
  Juan Robles saw a mobile home for sale in San Juan. He later met Marina Garcia, who he believed was the owner of the home.
  
  Between the two of them they worked out a payment plan. He said he made the first payment in September of last year.
  
  “I was paying her $600 a month. I paid for eight months as if it was going to be mine,” he said. “I have her $10,000 as a down payment.”
  
  Robles said an agreement was drafted and they took it to a notary. However, he said he cannot understand, read or write English.
  
  “I don’t know how to speak English. They were talking all English and I asked them, “Why don’t you all speak in Spanish? So that was I can understand what you all are talking about,’” he said.
  
  Robles said police came knocking at his door almost a year later. “They said for me to get out. If not, they were going to send people to get my stuff to the street,” he said.
  
  Police told Robles Garcia and all tenants needed to vacate immediately. Documents obtained from San Juan police proved Garcia didn’t own the home.
  
  “She was the one that supposedly sold it to me. Then it turned out she didn’t, and it wasn’t even hers. The property belonged to the financing company,” he said.
  
  The documents included the notarized agreement. They also gave a breakdown of the monthly rent amount. It read:
  
  “Buyer (being Robles) will comply with terms of seller’s contract with Vanderbilt Mortgage.”
  
  At the time, Robles said he had no idea what the agreement said.
  
  The documents also show Garcia’s history with her mortgage company. What Robles didn’t know was that Garcia wasn’t paying for the house. Robles’s payments were not reaching the mortgage company and the bill kept climbing.
  
  The mortgage company hired an attorney and issued Garcia a demand-for-payment letter in March.
  
  “She stopped giving the payments. I was giving her to the back as I had already mentioned. She owed three payments, so that’s when the financing company reacted,” he said.
  
  The documents show the mortgage company tried contacting Garcia countless of times for payments. She was ordered to pay more than $9,000 within 30 days.
  
  On May 16, a notice of sale was issued to Garcia stating her home would go up for public auction.
  
  Robles said he was evicted, but later filed an incident report with San Juan police for theft. He said he has tried to contact her every day since.
  
  The incident reports show San Juan police tried numerous times to call Garcia to come in for a statement. A warrant was also issued for Garcia about two months ago.

For the story, see San Juan Man Evicted after Purchasing Mobile Home. land contract for deed