Please Help! Probate Foreclosure Scammer/Con Artist Blocking Home Sale Demanding $30,000 Extortion To Release!!!

So my boyfriend’s mother passed away on 01/02/2020 and the mortgage company Fay Servicing would not accept any payments on the house. The pandemic hit shortly afterward and there was no immediate need to begin probate.

Several months went by some guy (the scammer) and his wife pull up out of nowhere on 10/29/2020 driving a Maserati who said they worked for the government offering federally backed loans. His wife supposedly worked for “HOPE” and handed me her business card. They said they could get more information on the foreclosure because we had not started the probate process yet and that they just needed them to sign a form (see image below) allowing them to look into everything and they would do all of this research for them and help them file probate for free.

As we sat there I was having trouble looking them up and asked them where I could find them online and so I asked them but they evaded the question and just said they were backed by the government and offered their services to help families facing foreclosure.

They left and then made arrangements to meet up with us again and I asked them more direct questions regarding what they were offering. They said that the foreclosure date was 01/13/2021 and that the outstanding balance was just shy of $12,000. The man then said he works for a group of investors who buy homes preforeclosure to avoid going to auction. 

They offered to give them a loan to make the payments current to give them more time to come up with the money. I told them my mother would catch up on the payments if necessary and that they didn’t need a loan but I wanted to know more about their offer. I asked what would happen if they didn’t repay the loan by a certain date and they said that in that case we would buy them home from you and you can choose your move out date up to three months after they would close and they would pay for the moving expenses including a truck and 4 guys to help pack and move everything. 

I then asked If they were buying the home if they could meet a reserve price that we would set at a minimum of $250,000 and they said that they wouldn’t do that. They would pay them $30,000 and pay off the rest of the house and had estimated $50,000 in repairs which I said was way too high. I told them that we were not interested in doing that because they could easily get $100,000 even with all of the repairs considered. I told them we wanted to look into other offers available before they decide on anything and thanked them for finding the information for us.

I then began finding other candidates to purchase the home and set up several appointments to evaluate the home to get offers. They ca scammers still over several times harassing Tim and telling him that the foreclosure date was actually 12/02/2020 and that if he didn’t hurry up and sell the home to them that he wouldn’t get any money. I sent many emails and texts back and forth to his wife (see images below) asking her for more information and to explain to me how they were not scammers. After evading all of my inquiries I told them we got a better offer on the home and that their services weren’t necessary. 

They then made an appointment without receiving any confirmation from us and showed up at the house again. They apparently waited in the car for three hours for my boyfriend and me to show up before leaving. They showed up the next few nights pushing his brother to sell the home to them without our consent. Probably because his brother is an obvious target and believes anything anyone tells him and they were targeting his ignorance and vulnerability. One of the last times they came over they said I had told them to go there to have Tim sign something but his brother called us luckily and I told him to get them the f**k out of there and never to come back. They lied about the foreclosure date which wasn’t until 01/26/2021, they just were trying to scare his brother into selling the house to them. The scammers did end up coming back several days later after we told them to take a hike and they intimidated and lied to his brother but this time they finally succeeded.

The next time we heard anything about it was after they got him to sign something which they didn’t leave him a copy of and he told us he “sold” the house or I should say he just agreed to sell the house to them without any hard numbers in place yet and gave them the last death certificate. But his brother didn’t have the authority to do any of that because probate wasn’t even filed yet and also to do anything at all he would need his brother’s signature. I then went off in an email to the scammer’s wife and demanded her to send a copy of whatever was signed and she never replied to that email or any others following it (see images below). I began researching everything I could dig up on the couple and it was very difficult but I did end up finding out that the man had his real estate license revoked for forgery in 2015.

Very upset and frantic, I called the paralegals working on probate they said not to worry because probate hadn’t been filed yet so nothing could happen anyway. I was relieved and so we dismissed the scammer incident and went on to sell the home to Opendoor.com to ultimately profit $90,000. The scammers actually went over to the house to speak with his brother again along with a notary and said they wanted to give them a better offer. He told them he already had a buyer and I emailed them a copy of the purchase agreement if they wanted to try to match it we might consider working with them but I got no answer.

Flash forward to last Thursday 01/21/2021, the day before we close with Opendoor.com to sell the home and they tell us they are being blocked from closing because of something filed with the court (see images below). They now need proof of release to move forward with the sale. After telling me a bit more about what was filed I immediately knew it was the scammers who were blocking it. I asked them to send me the document they received. The scammer filed some messy printed purchase agreement on 11/11/2020 that must have been what his brother signed except it was filled out with a thick marker for the rest of it which contained no initials by the alterations made nor the prices. The only part of it that was notarized what the coversheet and it only had the scammer’s name which is spelled incorrectly and if you look in the agreement they actually changed the correct spelling with an “a” to the letter “i” to match the notarized part. It is literally the worst agreement ever written on the planet – absolutely disgusting and utterly abhorrent. I am mortified. His brother is an absolute moron – he might as well have agreed to s**k this a**hole’s d**k every day for the rest of his life if it was written in there too.

The title agency told me he called them multiple times saying that he wouldn’t release the property to sell unless he got paid a fee because he “put a lot of work into it.” They asked how much the fee was and he said $30,000 and then demanded them to pay him for it and they said that they needed to speak with us about it because they had nothing to do with that agreement. We had to push the closing date to 01/29/2021 but the house goes to auction 01/26/2021 unless we make the loan current by 01/25/2021 by 5 pm which I can ask my mother to pay however I don’t want to ask her to do unless necessary but it’s likely I will have to do that come Monday anyways. 

I have reached out to several lawyers who have given me little/limited feedback – they all want to be paid to review the documents but we can’t afford to do that without knowing if they are going to be able to fix this promptly with certainty so I am reaching out on here for advice, answers or a good referral for a lawyer. 

Besides extortion, I was reviewing the purchase agreement and under “Liens” it says “Buyer has the right to purchase the property (Subject to)  unless completely opposed by the seller.” Does that mean all we have to do is write something for his brother to sign and hand to them stating “I the seller of the property (address) completely oppose the purchase of said property by the buyer and therefore this purchase contract is nullified and  I demand the immediate release of property for sale to Opendoor.com. Furthermore, there shall be no fee paid as there is no mention in the purchase agreement” or something like that?

I have told them not to speak to the scammers because I don’t want them to say something to screw this up even more than it already has been. I also have not filed a police report yet because I am worried that doing so will freeze the sale but not the foreclosure or something else like that. I do however plan on going after this guy once we have the sale squared away because I’ll be damned if this guy gets away with this BS. 

Please leave a comment any advice is welcome and very appreciated. 

Thank you.