| leasing to own
I live in Oklahoma and I am afraid my husband and I have gotten ourselves into big trouble. A little over a year ago we looked at a property for rent. there is a home on 10 acres. We spoke with the man who stated he was the owner and after looking at the home and realizing it needed lots of work, we spoke to him again at which point he offered a lease to own deal. We are in Oklahoma, but he lives in California and has only rented the property out for the past 5 years and said that he realized there was lots of work to be done due to bad renters etc...He said he was going to be coming to oklahoma in a couple of months and we could do the legal work and he would have an appraiser come out , etc ... In the meantime he faxed us a lease to own agreement that we signed, notarized. In order for us to live here, we had to start the work right away and we assumed responsibility for it financially. 3 months passed and we did not see him...several months passed and he still did not come. Then we find out through a neighbor that this guy may not even own this house and that it was actually given to this guys wife by her grandparents. So...we stopped all work on the home and contacted him. He stated to us then that yes they are still married and yes the deed is in fact in her name only (she had it before they married) but that she left, just walked away and he doesn't know where she is at so he began renting the home out and he is planning to go file paper work stating that she abandoned him as well as the property so that makes it his. Now it gets sticky....we know nothing about these laws and have tried to look it up to see if he can actually do this but legal lingo is like greek....
Meanwhile..a few days ago we were contacted by THE WIFE!!! She claims that she did in fact walk away from an abusive marriage and stayed away until she knew it was safe. She has been paying the taxes on the home in order to keep it from being declared abandoned. She has said that due to all that we have put into this house financially she would be willing to strike the same deal with us....LEGALLY!! and do whatever she needs to in order to make sure that we have a solid deal. NOW...my question is this...can this guy do what he says he can do? Can he claim ownership of this house? We don't know if to stay with the contract we have with him and let those two duke it out in court...or if we should go with her due to the fact her name is on the deed! Or is it a matter of who beats who to the punch. We contacted him and all he can say is "don't worry about it, I got it covered" In the meantime he is asking us to file a lien against this property stating we have an interest in the house. We are confused and have no idea what the laws are. We want first and foremost to protect ourselves and our family. Yes, we know we were stupid to put money into this without solid paper work...thanks for any advice we could get! | 
11-03-2009, 11:57 AM
Linear Mode
