In 2016, we took the big step of following our dream and moving to the country to establish a homestead. One barrier we had to overcome in making that dream a reality was selling our old house. Because we had little money and could not afford to keep up the payments on the house while also building our new place, we chose to sell the property to an individual who buys properties for the remainder of the outstanding mortgage, and then resells them through a rent-to-own situation. When we signed the contract with this person, everything was covered and we should have been free and clear of our outstanding mortgage by 2022. A few months into this agreement, however, this person told us we would have to sign a new contract to fix a clause in our current contract that did not allow for subletting the property. We were told this was the only change that was going to be made, and we were essentially signing the same agreement, just updated. This person rushed us to sign the new contract and we weren't really given a chance to read it before signing. However, we had no reason to think anything was amiss, since for the next 5 years our mortgage was paid and we didn't have to worry about our previous house. Until the beginning of May that is. We were contacted by this person's assistant and told that they were "ready to close" (pay the final large lump sum payment that was still due) on our old house. At first we were happy about this, as it would mean our name was off the deed and we would never have to even think about that house again. Then they told us the amount they were showing as what they still owed. It was nearly $20,000 less than what our payoff amount was to the bank. We realized that when we were rushed into signing the 2nd contract, the subletting clause was not all this person changed. However, because we did sign it, even though it was under misrepresentation and false pretenses, we were still liable to accept this ridiculous amount and deliver the house. Obviously we cannot do that, since we don't have almost $20,000 sitting around to make up the difference to the bank. We have tried to work something out with this person, but they keep insisting we accept their ludicrous "payment" since we agreed to it in their shady contract. We have retained a lawyer who is trying to help us sort this mess out, but as you can imagine it's not cheap. We do not have a lot of money for day to day living, much less to pay tons of legal fees and once more resume payments on our old house while we work this out. We realize it was supremely stupid to sign that 2nd contract, to trust this person, and to file that contract away and not look at it for 5 years and just assume that everything was ok because our mortgage was being paid. Our only defenses to this are that we were caught with this at a vulnerable point in our lives, and this person exploited that vulnerability and our desperation at trying to unload our old house. Also, we have little to no experience in real estate transactions and didn't really know what we were doing. Finally, in our research into this person since all this has come about, we have found that this sort of thing is how they operate. They trick and scam vulnerable, desperate people and operate just enough within the law that no one can really peg anything blatantly illegal on them. So that brings me to the point of this fundraiser: we are trying to raise what we estimate will be our legal costs and fees going forward with this. As I said, we have already retained a lawyer, which cost us $1000. (We had to put it on a credit card.) We are hoping to settle this out of court, but if it goes to court there will be more and greater fees, and we likely will have to pay our lawyer more. On top of this, we are going to have to scrape together the money to start paying the mortgage payments on our old house until this matter is resolved. I have chosen this venue for crowd funding as it offers the option to allow us to keep all our donations even if we don't reach our funding goal. I know this is a very hard time for everyone. Costs are skyrocketing and everyone has it hard. Anything at all you can donate will be greatly appreciated. I will update everyone as to the progress of our case, and hopefully if we can get out of this without declaring bankruptcy and with our homestead still belonging to us (A homestead that we have worked hard and long on and FINALLY got to move into the house of (after working on it ourselves for nearly 5 years) last year) we can have a big party out here for everyone who has helped us.