Obligations to Not Mislead Court by Omitting Facts

[hconey88]

We were involved this past couple of years in litigation over our home we had contracted to by with sellers who both died within the "5 year review" term in the terms of the contract which stated that we were to pay our payment to the sellers monthly, including the extra 100.00 escrowed for taxes, from "August 1992 until September 1997 at which time this contract shall be review" ... We signed and so forth and 8 months later the husband of the "sellers" died, and approximately 3 years later, the wife died, which was in 1996, over a year before this review period was to take place. The review was intended in part to make certain we were paying of course, and also to possibly make an adjustment in the slightly higher interest rate we were paying, and also for the sellers to have time to fix, and or replace various things- all issues we had at the time of purchase- which the sellers were needing to do in order to satisfy some of our requests on the property. We were never officially notified after their deaths, we learned about his a month after he died, from the wife- when we took her our payment,-- and of the wife's death same way- this time one of their 8 kids was at their house that month after her death when we went to pay- and she directed us to start making payments to the other daughter at such and such address... so, we did. Obviously now I would have sought legal council, but at that time we were very young & naive to this contract business and home purchasing thing. Needless to say, we continued on for the next 7 or so years, paying this daughter and after many bouts of her being sick and in Mayo Clinic and holding checks for up to 6 months at a time before depositing them- I decided to apply for a traditional mortgage and was pre-approved, they needed a payoff, so I contacted her- said she'd send it right out, ect.. but didn't, after being asked a couple more times, ect... I went to the courthouse to check out the orig. sellers Wills, found out that the property was never listed in his will, but it was listed in her will. I thought that was strange, but I didn't know how that worked, so I decided to contact the attorney on her will, and in my conversation to him, I asked how this affected our rights as purchasers, ect... He was pretty decent to me, didn't offer any info on that, but suggested that I try and give another call to the daughter we had been paying- and try once again for the pay off bal., as she was "reasonable, probably just been busy"... A few short weeks later, we suddenly get this demand letter from this same attorney I had called about the Will he prepared for our seller-- he's now representing the daughter (this is over 8 years after the estate was probated) and their threatening forfeiture of our contract, stating that we were thousands of dollars deliquent, hadn't paid our taxes, ect... to over $25,000. which was bull- we weren't in no way shape or form delinquent as he stated! He demands that we provide proof otherwise if we disagree, and have it to him by noon in 7 days from the date of the letter. So, I gathered all our receipts from the past years, and we had paid them 48,542. in available recpts I had, these I had to gather and get to him in that quick time as demanded- AND do an amoritization with them, too- we had made several larger payments at the beginning on the 53,000 purchase, 3000. downpayment transaction, and done according to the contracts 10% interest rate- despite no end date being on the contract because of the 5 year review lang., I did this at a 30yr. (this was going to be done at the 5 yr) I came up with a payoff on a 30 yr of roughly 51,000, and sent this to his office. He didn't respond for a couple of weeks, so I sent an email to him, and he replied -that she would accept that for a payoff... so I wrote back and said, that was a rough amt, and that I may talk to someone on our behalf for the legality of the contracts blank dates, and balance-- to make sure, and stated that I would talk to him soon. About a couple wks later- we we're served with the forfeiture notice~ and WOW! this attorney went after us like you wouldn't believe from that time on-- and now, I know why. During this whole ordeal- he sabotaged our every effort to do everything- from the Legal aspect thru selling it, and then saying she wanted all of the money- not just what was owed to her, but our equity, too thru all my mortgage attempts- it started with my atty calling him and discussing the forfeiture before him and I met the 1st time- after I had faxed him the notice and he had his name and phone # on it- when I called this atty and he agreed to take the case over the phone-- he was very eager to "get on it" and knew we only had 30 days, blah blah, blah..., and we set up a meeting for the following week to go over recpt's.. but by that meeting, he had formed this opinion we hadn't been paying, ect... all based on the estate atty's mouth- but, despite this neg attitude, I was told to give him a check, meet next week... I did, we met again- still this bad attitude, but no indication he wasn't going to do anything that 30 days- I thought he was still going to be representing us... until I figured it out when several calls over the next two weeks went un-returned and despite my efforts and urgencies for a follow up when I talked to the firms secretary and left messages where he didn't return the calls, and a letter that 28th day to the court itself finally-- with no help from the Judge- he stated he needed more than a letter to cause a hearing on the matter-- we lost our 30 day window because of the atty's mouthing us to my atty- which ultimately lost us our home, even with the new attys filing an injunction and it going to trial 8 months later... the estate atty changed his opinion, my mort. loan companies I was trying to get financing thru, the court seemed to key into his docs filed and of course we looked like low life's by now- cause I couldn't even get financing because of my credit, ect... HE'D call them, they'd drop me, ect... I was already pre-approved which meant doing a credit check- so it wasn't "credit", it was "credibility" and there's a big diff on paper and hearing about someones "credibility" - especially when their an atty- it holds weight better than the average Joe's statements about someone would- people tend to believe an atty regardless- he's supposed to be so ethical, right?? All based on his bad mouthing us and wanting us out so bad... well, the reason- discovered by myself, after really reading and pulling apart the events, wills, transfer laws ect... He had screwed up the estate plan, excluded our contract when he transferred and filed doc's concerning the other contracts these people had, and since no lingo where allowed for on our contract, no other affidavits, ect that passed the contract to the heirs legally- realized the error, and the only way out of it was to forfeit us- so title wouldn't be clouded with our filed contract before the filed assignment and special warranty deed he filed 4 years later that had the assignment to the heirs in it... so he sabotaged our every effort- AND- our incompetant atty's hired after the 1st one he ran off- wouldn't believe me- cause, not many atty would overlook such an extremely important transfer, so they wouldn't even look at the records I provided. Over the next several months I went thru 6 diff mort loan apps, which caused 44 hits on my credit report, loan app's filed, approved, he insisted on having the info each time- well duh, he was calling them, then suddenly they stopped and fazed out, wouldnt return my calls, ect... so he had everyone around us-including my own atty's, not believing in us, all the while played it so well out, including holding the title abstract till 5 days before we went to trial, submitting documents that had important sections left out- sections that would prove the transfer was not correct, which meant that there was no legal enf of the forfeiture- much less the right to file it to begin with! All this to protect his secret screw up on this estate/our property... we lost the house! and I have so much proof of this (I used to work for the State I live in, and have entered docs in every county- and 31 jurisdictions across the US as a Child Support Enforcement Specialist, and also trained by the Feds under Homeland Security on fraudulent docs, and lots more legal for the State, so I'm not stupid- I know he did what he did- and I can prove it), my problem is- time for appeal was screwed up for us by my atty's not doing so, not offering, my lack of expertise in this area and probate laws, real property, transfers, ect... and the Christmas Holiday- I was 1 stinking day late filing the appeal- and now we're barred from doing so! No one in my state will go after atty malpractice- no one. We are screwed- and lost our home, I quit my job over the stress and not wanting to eventually be fired due to all the time off we had to take, I've been diagnosed as a depressed person, it's all been documented... our attys have billed us over 21,000 after the 5000.00 we put as a retainer, so in addition to the 65,000 we lost in equity since the value of our property more than doubled over the years we lived there, we also lost the 26,000 we did in upgrades and so on we had done over the yrs...the 48,542 in payments we had recpts for (not all were found, either-but no proof- no credit, eh) just about everything! I'm just sick over this! And, he filed false statements, incomplete docs that would show title verification in us, and so on... what can we do here? I cannot believe the Court didn't do better reseach on the items he submitted- cause if I can figure this out- (which was eventually conceded as true by my worthless 2nd attys a year later) then why didn't the court? Is that how much they really have faith in ALL the atty's? I know all attys arent this way, but do they trust them so much for the most part, that those who are get away with this behavior? Do they just say "The atty wouldn't do that, cause it's unethical, so we don't bother to look over exhibits as we should before we rule??" Can anyone offer Any help as to a suggestion here? We're flat busted here- so I gotta do this pro se if anything, which of course is not looked at and ruled on typically or statistically to our favor, from my understanding... This is as brief as I could be to make sure this wouldn't run out of space on the message area of this forum, feel free to ask questions if you need clarification on something. Oh- I will be filing a complaint w/ ABA soon- but from what I have read, the 2% of annual sanctions actually filed and disciplined on anyway just seems pointless, and how would we recover $$ loss anyway, so that seems mute, too. Ya Know? Thanks

The State Bar indeed will investigate so do pursue that remedy as well --it helps more often than you may have heard.

[hconey88]

Thank You for your response, I hope that the State Bar will pursue some sort of investigation, I can't imagine the number of people, like myself, who have had something like this happen to them, too. If it can happen to us, then I'm sure it probably happens to more people than realized. And, I know that if I don't file a complaint then not only have I let myself down and not fought for our losses, that there's a good chance that this guy may not think twice in the future about doing something similiar to someone else because he got away with it this time. The bar also needs to know the impact that his dishonesty has had on our lives, and reputation. Again, thanks for supporting my thoughts to file the complaint- I did need some sort of reassurance that this was even going to do any good if I did. I will hold strong to my thoughts of integrity and ethics that this line of work must relate it's everyday work to- the Public hires an attorney because that's WHAT we're supposed to do- which means that we also depend on not just their expertise, but also the ethical responsibilities to their clients and fellow attorneys they have to maintain as well.

let us know here what happens