DEED FRAUD: STEALING A HOUSE IS EASIER THAN STEALING A BIKE

In 2016, David Miles (my now ex-husband) and I had purchased a home together. We divorced in 2017. At that point in time, I was in college and had just started my house-cleaning company. David had told me he had a way to allow me to keep the house until I could qualify to finance it without his income. His idea was to have the house and mortgage debt go to him in the divorce, and to also personally draw up a Lease/Option to Purchase contract for us. This was explained to me as a way to stay in the home and to not have to move my kids. I was appreciative of what I had thought then to be a selfless gesture, and was equally glad that he had figured out his own housing shortly thereafter. So I agreed to this plan. David had always enjoyed legal paperwork, drawing up contracts and such, and at that time I had had no reasons (that I knew of then, anyway) not to trust him to prepare all the paperwork. That belief that he still wanted the best for my kids and I, and I also wanting the best for him, coupled with my character trait (flaw?) of always seeing the good in others had sadly blinded me to his carefully chosen, deceptive wording I would later find was the real man behind the charismatic/sympathetic mask he wore.

I, along with other family members who also lived in the house, began paying our rent payments directly to “landlord” David and moved on with our lives in relative peace. Fast-forward 8 months… I was shocked to find that my once good credit score (which had helped us to achieve the purchase of the home two years prior) had dropped significantly when applying for a personal loan and getting denied due to a poor credit score. I couldn’t figure out why it would have until i found out that the home mortgage company, USAA, had been reporting several missing mortgage payments on my credit. But according to David and the divorce decree, my name should have been removed from the loan. Not to mention…why were there missed payments dating all the way back to about the time of our divorce? When I asked him about this, he assured me it was all a mistake and that he would “take care of it.” I then started receiving court papers in the mail regarding the house and potential foreclosure proceedings. This was becoming something I could no longer be okay with trusting that David was getting it handled, as he was getting progressively tougher to reach….except when it came time to pay him rent money, of course. What little conversations I did manage to have with him regarding the missing house payments and impending court hearing was spent with him gaslighting me (again, a learned hindsight) and assuring me this had been a mistake on the lender’s end and insisted I need not go to any of the court hearings. I wanted to believe he was being truthful to me, but things weren’t adding up and it wasn’t sitting well with me. I finally talked David into giving me the USAA account/password information to be able to get some answers myself. It was then that I found out that I was still a co-owner/co-borrower of the house! David insisted that this had been a lender error and that he had talked with them and they would be sending us both paperwork stating such and that the now $25,000 in back-owed payments was their error. Aaannnddd to continue paying him the rent.

Feeling something wasn’t right about this story he was telling, I pressed the issue for actual documented proof that this was the case. The credit disputes on the missing payments he had told me to try by showing the divorce decree stated the house debt to be his had not been fruitful. Why I was being dragged down in his mess if what he was saying to me were true? He finally admitted to me that he had never had my name removed from the loan like the divorce decree had said for him to do within 30 days. And eventually, he also “confessed” his “embarrassing” story of having been scammed by a refinancing company named Ocwen. However, the only proof he ever gave me on this were three carbon copies of checks written to the supposed company and a little portion of his bank statement to “back that up” with many transactions crossed out. My step father was very concerned for me and for a time helped with writing emails to the prosecuters on our case to explain what had been happening. However, we expressed that we believed that I had actually been the victim of a scam…by him. So my step father was preparing to hire an attorney for me, and in the midst, had David convincing him that I had no real rights in this matter as I was just the renter. Eventually I talked David into helping me pursue options to save the house, even though his words and actions showed little to no concern about a foreclosure ending up on his record….nor for all of us living there and potentially being homeless in the near future. And then the truth of his pocketing of those payments for the 17 months, and not some mistake on the lender’s end and not some false Ocwen refinancing company….but plain ol’ thievery of his. It took me quite some time after this to accept that he could have done this to me, to all of us, including my two children that he had helped raise for several years.

Even though the total amount owed in back payments and fees had climbed to a horrendous $43,000, David would over and over again insist and inform me that it wasn’t theft. He said that if I tried to report it, I would be told that it was a civil matter. And taking him to court would cost me so much in court and attorney fees that it wouldn’t be worth it. While his words now held very little weight with me, I was aware that he had knowledge in things of the lawful nature, having been a CSO for a time with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and he had also had schooling in Criminal Justice and real estate. I also pleaded with him on several occasions to pay back that money he had taken, or at least borrow out of his family’s trust fund. He never would. Despite the major setback he had created, I was determined to keep this house and to one day be able to call it mine, and eventually the modification application went through and was approved, with the additional $43,000 added to the loan. The monthly payments had increased, as well, along with David insisting that we also carry forward the Lease/Option to Buy Agreement from before….only, now we agreed that I would be paying USAA directly, and not him, for obvious reasons.

David had remarried after me and divorced yet again and ended up moving back to Arizona. He began asking about how my credit was now doing and tried getting me to refinance to remove his name, or to sell. And any time over the next couple of years I would be starting to look into the refinancing, he would always throw in a major caveat that would end with him receiving an unfair buyout, even though he and I both knew that he had already taken money from the house that I was going to have to pay back a second time for him! His inquiries and “offers” would always start slightly before spring, which is the best time to sell in the Real Estate market. The house was building equity fast by this point, and certainly not due in the least to him. As the home value increased, so too did his greed. With that came a more aggressive series of messages, attempting to discredit all that I had done to keep this house from going away, while simultaneously shifting the blame on me for “keeping his name tied to the house.” Nobody wanted his name removed from the house more than I did! But I started becoming suspicious that he had ulterior motives and wasn’t truly ever wanting me to be able to refinance and remove him. I especially felt this way after he had roadblocked me on several solutions I had proposed, to include his buyout being much more manageable for me if it were minus the money his actions tacked back onto the loan when he stole all of those months of mortgage payments. To this day, he refuses to take accountability for this and be responsible for repaying that which he took that did not belong to him.

On several occasions, he would employ coercive tactics that threatened my family and I with homelessness if I did not agree to his very one-sided contracts he was proposing. Contracts he had riddled with hidden consequences and caveats that I likely would have fallen for had I not already learned he was a con artist. It became ever more apparent that I had to move quickly to get this person out of my life and out of my finances.

Fast forward to Jan/Feb 2024. I proudly and excitedly inform David of the (what I thought he would find to be) good news that I was filling out my pre-approved USAA assumption loan paperwork to at last have us split house ties, which coincided with his most recent demands of having a path to refinancing by March 2024. Otherwise, he wanted to list the house for sale and said he would split the profit. Keep in mind, this is on par with his Spring timeline and coincidently is being heavily pushed before a looming housing market crash. In true David the Conman Miles fashion of throwing last-minute curveballs, amidst my application process, he had my name illegally removed from the property deed with an equally illegally drawn up Quit Claim Deed without my knowledge or consent. With the incredibly unfortunate lax rules/laws surrounding property records, Jackson County Property Records filed David’s Quit Claim Deed. The notarization on this deed stated that I was present in Maricopa County, AZ and that I agreed to forgo my ownership. His Quit Claim Deed also cited our seven year old divorce decree that had once awarded him the property. However, he has been in contempt of the divorce decree for never removing my name from the house debt with refinancing of his own right after our divorce. Shockingly, this surface-level removal of my ownership rights to my home, while still not legal and currently in court case, is still negatively effecting me and being able to actually refinance the house. It also has infuriatingly not been ordered by our judge to be fixed. It seems this was David’s plan all along. Once I built him enough equity and tried to buy the house, my use for him as The Bank of Elisa was done.

“Within thirty (30) days of the date of this judgment, each party must execute, acknowledge,

and deliver whatever documents are necessary to accomplish the distribution of debts and

property ordered by the court. This judgment operates to convey title to the party awarded

the property if the other party fails to comply with this requirement.”

This clause is directly after an equally important clause that states:

“Unless otherwise specified above, each party is responsible for the payment of all debts incurred by him or her individually since the date of separation, all debts distributed to him or her by the court, and all debts which are secured by property distributed to that party. If any creditor asks the party not responsible for a debt to pay any portion of it, and he or she does so, the party responsible for that debt must reimburse the paying party for any amount paid to the creditor after the date this judgment is entered.”

David is in violation of the divorce decree for failing to refinance the property and using the decree to misrepresent sole-ownership.

After the Quit Claim Deed was filed, David used this new false record to file evictions on myself, my fiance Ryan, and my other family members living there with us. This was yet another attempt to defraud under the guise of “landlord.” So I had no choice but to file a lawsuit this last March. Hoping the obvious fraud would protect my rights and stop this man from selling the house right out from under me, leaving me penniless and without any proceeds from the sale. To add to these injustices, Ryan and I would be forced to close down our three years of running strong Airbnb business, our greatest source of income.

At first, we believed our court hearings were going well enough. The Judge had forced the evictions to be dropped, validating our claims that David was not a landlord as we have remained co-owners to this house. However, the way the case continued to move forward began to raise red flags. For instance, after declaring that David had indeed committed a series of crimes against me, the judge then did nothing with this knowledge to hold him accountable, make ammends, or otherwise offer any sort of relief to us, the plaintiffs and victims in this case. At the very least, the judge was making excuses and allowances for the criminal David. The Judge and David decided that I am to buy the house “from him” at the current market value, ignoring the fraud, the deed theft, and the embezzlement that added $43,000 to the loan. The current market value is $160,000 to $200,000 more than what is owed on the loan. A mortgage that, of the two owners, I have been the sole one paying since our 2017 divorce. David interjected an offer, stating that he would accept $75,000 as a buyout. I was rather in shock that a “fair” deal, considering everything he had been putting me through for years, was even being discussed like this. Why was David even being given the floor to make offers, as though he hadn’t already been an admitted and acknowledged thief and fraudster, as though he hadn’t just tried making seven people homeless (one of them being me, the other owner of the home) ILLEGALLY? I asked the judge if I could think about it, as I felt worried to agree to something with David again too quickly. I had been screwed over enough by this person and couldn’t go through it again. The judge assured me he wasn’t going to hold me to this deal. In between the hearings of this case and along with talking to endless lenders and companies in attempts to achieve approvals to refinance a now even larger balance, along with nearly triple rated interest, Ryan and I got wise and got legal consult along with much research to find what was truly fair and just for all parties involved. I found time after time that without my name on the deed, I couldn’t even apply to refinance. Lenders wouldn’t even accept an application with this major roadblock. The Judge was made aware of this hindrance I was facing at the next hearing, but refused to take our word for it, telling us to get an expert to verify this. We obliged in the next hearing. Two experts in the field of real estate informed the court that a person cannot refinance a home they are not on the deed for, despite the deed’s fraudulence. The judge again stated that he wouldn’t mess with the deed and proceeded to tell me that I had 60 days to find a lender who will refinance me and that he would order it done. Still a bit unsure what exactly the judge was expecting of me, Ryan and I spoke with a loan specialist at Rogue Federal Credit and explained our convoluted situation. Our now official loan specialist was able to put together a handful of options loosely based on what we could tell him, but again could do not much more without that deed getting fixed. Fraudulent Quit Claim Deeds also cloud the title, which in turn makes it uninsurable and therefore not marketable for a private sale.

We then had a status conference to present the financing that we had come up with. This hearing was also to address our Motion for Default Judgment that we filed on David for failing to file a formal Answer or Counterclaim to our lawsuit, along with a few other requests. We had put together an affidavit of our financial road map with our loan specialist with a projected date of closing, committing to the plan. We also made it known to the judge that our loan specialist had made himself available during the court hearing to discuss our plans/options with the judge. This was more than what the Judge had asked of us and the most we could legally do without the deed being restored. It was at this hearing that we had also planned to negotiate the tentative terms that were originally proposed.

At the hearing, David was slow to pick up the phone, then answered claiming he had left a message with the court clerk that he was in a motorcycle accident that same day. He stated that he had been given medication that made him “not in his right mind”. The Judge denied our Motion for Default judgment, stating that David had been present at the hearings previously. He then stated that we would continue the hearing in 2 weeks, and resolve the matter with a partition sale without even asking for an update on the refinance. We interjected that we had something put together. He said he would look over what we had filed and to send a copy to David. He told us to let him know if all parties are okay with the plan and to let him know, and he would just cancel the next hearing if it wasn’t needed.

Along came the next hearing to finally be able to discuss our plan. I began updating him on the details of our road map. That with a late payment from the previous year needed to also be dropped off the record this December, a mere three months away. I had also informed the judge of this when I had to bring in the Deed expert. David had missed the court’s first attempt at reaching him via phone and wasn’t calling back. The Judge then said to his assistant, “We’re gonna try a different number for Mr. Miles,” which he answered.

The judge started re-explaining what David had missed thus far, and he incorrectly informed him “She said she has to wait a YEAR.” David responded, stating “Yeah, that’s what I’m seeing here. Also, her timeline says she’s not even going to apply for another six months. She was supposed to have applied during the 60 days you had given to her…So what she’s saying is she’s basically done nothing with the time she’s been given, and frankly this is part and parcel to what I’ve been dealing with the entire time. We came to an agreement and she wants to negotiate terms last-second.”

The Judge then informed us he was selling the house because, “David is the legal owner of the property, and the only one on the mortgage.”

Whaaaatt??? Our heads nearly exploded. As if the month’s worth of hearings and previous rulings we had been having hadn’t even happened! The judge stated that even if he wasn’t the legal owner and only one on the loan, he can’t move forward until he is off the loan. Adding insult to injury, he set the matter for Trial, telling us he was still ordering it sold at the Trial and that Trial and whatever evidence we bring then was going to be determine the split of profit. This was a violation of more than a few rules and laws of civil procedure, according to the research we had done. He set the trial date for late Oct. a mere month away from when I am clear to refinance. I explained how ludicrous it was to not allow such a small window of time, considering everything that David had stacked me up against all these years and still to this day. I was about to lose everything I had worked so hard for for the last seven/eight years of my life. An especially uneccesary travesty when it is these losses being done at the request of my abuser, the person who has already victimized and taken so much away from me. The judge simply stated that refinancing didn’t happen, knowing he had never legally cleared the deed so I could even apply, while simultaneously barring me from any access to home equity lines of credit I could have utilized with my improved credit to buy David’s “share” out, however begrudgingly.

Since this last court date, we have found no evidence to the contrary that David indeed faked his entire motorcycle accident, which he subsequently and oddly refused to provide proof of. We also attempted to recuse our Judge, which we believe the judge himself denied. (Apparently they themselves decide whether or not they are disqualified?) Thus making our concerns of bias, impartiality and Judicial misconduct even more daunting.

However, it isn’t over until it’s over. Ryan and I believe we have a few more tools at our disposal that could possibly change the outcome of our case. Time and further research (and help?) will tell…We don’t think it wise to give away much of our upcoming plans onto a public forum.

While we have managed to scrape up some of the finances that will be needed for our best shot at success in our upcoming trial (Oct 29th)… We have decided in an absolute last-resort attempt to humbly ask if any of you or anyone any of you may know might be in a position to either donate whatever you can, or loan whatever you are able to. Please help us to turn this travesty around. If loaned, you will be repaid regardless the outcome, whether we lose our house and business or not. We aren’t like the David’s of the world who believe what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. A sad way for anyone to live and to be affecting others.

We thank you very much for taking the time also to read all of what we had to tell you. With all the love and appreciation for you in our lives.