Breach of Contract? Texas

[SHDR85]

I posted a thread a few weeks back concerning this topic, and now have a little more complicated situation and definitely need some kind of answers. My boyfriend purchased a mobile home on a lease to own basis. He has lived in the home 4 years, and paid everything he has owed (lot fees, mortgage, and escrow) monthly up until November 2008, when a discrepency was noticed in his contract following hurricane Ike. The serial number on the purchase agreement do not match the house, or what is filed with the County or the State. This problem prevented us from being able to file for assistance from FEMA as owners, but instead had to file as renters, and were unable to obtain the funds to repair our damaged property. We addressed the issue with the owner of the property in November, and were told we needed to sit down and discuss everything. A meeting was never arranged, rather an envelope containing the deed filed with the state, and the serial number filed with the county, both matching eachother, the house and bearing my boyfriends name, was taped to the front door. We in turn provided a copy of the contract, which bore a different serial number, and his explanation was simply that it was a "typo." Do to our own bad judgement, we did not make any payments towards our home for November or December, but continued to pay the rent on the lot it is placed on, also to the same company we are buying the home from. In January, our lot payment was late, and they filed for a Legal Eviction. At that time, we contacted the owner directly, as he is the only person my boyfriend will deal with, and we paid the lot fees and made an arrangement for the mortgage payments to be paid in full the first week of February. He informed everything was good, and that so long as we paid in February, we would be fine. So, the court date came and passed, and with the agreement that we made with him, thought we didn't need to go to court anymore. The owner, however, went to court and won a default judgement, and is set to serve us papers on February 3rd. We understand we have a right to appeal, and plan on doing so Monday morning, as that is the first day that they will be open since we have found this all out. We are still going to pay all past due amounts on the house payment to show good faith, and make good on our verbal agreement, but I am uncertain what other action we may take legally. We have requested a new contract, and have yet to get one. This has been going on 3 months already. We have made arrangements, and made payments when we agreed to make them, and I know that in the state of Texas, a verbal agreement is just as good as a written one, so, are there legal options for a civil suit against him, at least to recoup the 18000 we have paid toward this property, so that we may move on down the road? Is it a breach of contract that what we signed is significantly different from what we were given? We don't even know that the serial number provided on the contract belongs to a mobile home that still exists. We are definitely going to speak with an attorney, but I am unsure of the legal action we can, by law, take against him. Thank you for taking the time to read this long novel, and respond! The advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[Cvillecpm]

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS go to court when there is a return or trial date.

You need an attorney to straighten out the title/serial# issue and file your appeal. Get one ASAP