Dude, are you sitting? - Tomer Maor
# Entrepreneur of the Week Tomer Maor # Post 2
Relatively early in my career working in the United States, Roy approached me (fake name yes?) With a pretty simple case. Wanted to perform some registration update on his LLC. I reacted quickly, acted quickly, explained the process, was blown away.
About a week after that, Danny (fake name, did you understand?) Calls me after receiving warm recommendations from Roy. Danny tells me he has a case similar to Roy's case, and he heard I was able to help him chick check so asked for help.
"No problem Danny, tell me what you need."
Danny tells me that a few years ago he bought an investment house, transferred money and received a rent for about 3 years. Lease payments have recently stopped. In addition, the person who sold the property to him, delayed registering the property in his name and explained that in the district where the property was purchased there are problems and delays unrelated to it.
I asked Danny to send me all the documents he has regarding the property. Any correspondence, any document, even if it seems irrelevant to him.
Danny cooperated. Send a sales agreement, DEED, HUD, a title insurance document and references on the transfer of funds to the transaction - about $ 80. I started testing.
I started checking the registry as of today. Website of the district, checking documents, and records, and lo and behold - the property is registered in the name of Sheker Kolshehu LLC. The DEED that Danny passed on to me (called Danny DEED) shows that Sheker Kolshehu LLC transferred the property to Danny's LLC. great! Just need to understand why it was not recorded correctly?
Not true!!!
Checking more. Things are not going well.
Looking at the HUD Danny passed on to me. According to the HUD, the seller of the property is generally a guy named Kevin. I do not understand - if Kevin is the seller, why is the Deed suddenly lying to Danny ?? What's going on here???
Continues to explore. Looking at the details of the PDF files that Danny sent - the HUD and the Title Insurance. See that each file has a creation date, which is before the contract is signed, and an edit date two months later. The date of creation of the files is one day before the signing of the sale agreement.
Checks emails from Dani, when he received the HUD and Title Insurance and discovers that these were actually sent two months after they were created according to the file details. Two months after signing the contract.
Things look really bad. At this point I started checking out all the recordings made on this property. I was appalled.
Remember Kevin? Well, Kevin, the one listed on the HUD as the seller of the property to Danny? So Kevin at all signed a contract with some lie LLC, a month after Kevin allegedly according to the HUD transfers the property to Danny. Danny's contract is not with Kevin by the way: he's a contract in Hebrew with another company.
A little confused? A moment of order is made at the events:
1. 2 PDF files are created: the first HUD, the second Title Insurance.
On the same day, a contract was signed between the seller of the property and Danny. The contract was signed days later.
3. A month after that - an agreement between Kevin and some lie LLC. The agreement was recorded a few days later (recorded)
4. A month later: Someone edits the HUD and Title Insurance and the same day sends to Danny to sign them.
We are now two months after signing the contract between Danny and the company that sold him the property. He has a signed HUD, he has Title insurance, he still does not have DEED and he sees that the property is not registered in his name.
Continues to contact the seller all the time, harassing them, demanding explanations.
After a year (!!) Danny receives a Deed email that transfers the property from some false company LLC to Danny's company.
I go to the county's website, check all the entries made. Sees a transfer to Kevin. Sees a transfer from Kevin to some lie. Does not at any stage see the company that sold the property, nor does it see Danny.
Finds the details of the owner of some false company.
Calling him.
"I have never sold this property," he says. I send him the DEED, and he tells me "Listen, this is not my signature at all".
Honestly, I did not believe honestly. I found more of this person's girlfriends, and started looking for Deeds he signed to match the signature. Walla - the guy spoke the truth.
Calling Danny. I will not forget this conversation in life. It was Friday, 5:00 a.m. Boston time.
"Danish? Are you sitting? I do not know how to tell you that, but you did not buy a house. "
Danny replies: “What do you mean? I bought. I paid money. I had a lawyer *. I received a lease for 3 years. "
I said to him, “Danny, how much did you pay? 80,000? And how much rent did you get? $ 800 a month? Well, you paid yourself 3 years' rent. "
By the way - the references of the money transfers that Danny sent? Directly to the seller. Not for Teitel.
And what does the story actually come to teach us? Never transfer money directly to the seller. forever. (Also: do not go to Danny's lawyer. Contact me in private for a warm dis-recommendation).
By the way, Danny did everything right: he was careful, went to an expert lawyer, asked to see documents, etc. But Danny did not have anyone to guide him regarding basic things, which are fundamentally different from the real estate field in the country. After all, everyone who made a real estate transaction in the country transferred money directly to the seller (true, warning notes, funds in trust, etc., but at the end of the day - the money does come directly from the buyer to the seller).
Responses