*A 65-year old Detroit is speaking out after discovering she is the victim of a landlord scam and now facing eviction.
June Walker finished paying off what she had hoped would be her forever home more than 2 years ago, but her hard work was all for nothing as she is apparently the victim of the “fake landlord” scam, Black Enterprise reports.
Here’s more from the article:
In January 2019, Walker was finding a house with a more affordable rent when she was shown the bungalow which was in poor condition. A property manager named Maurice gave her a copy of the deed, which appeared to be from the owner of the house named Derrick. She found some parts of the document odd but she couldn’t quite point it out since she had never seen one before and she just trusted Maurice. After signing the rent-to-own agreement in February 2019, she moved in and gradually made repairs to the house. She saved up her money and set aside most of her disability check and made her final payment last spring.
When it came time to put the deed in her name in April, Derrick was suddenly missing in action and his phone number no longer worked.
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‘I’m not leaving this house, I paid for it’: Detroit resident June Walker speaks about ‘fake landlord’ scam https://t.co/1Chn5BvR1Y
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 21, 2021
It wasn’t until Walker received a trespassing summons in the mail and later appeared at a virtual court hearing that she learned she had been scammed.
“For a person like me to be a homeowner — someone with $700 a month income — and to be able to buy a decent home on a land contract and get it finished? You know, that’s an accomplishment,” Walker told NBC News.
As reported by Black Enterprise, a Pennsylvania company called RHMS Group purchased the house in 2017 and the property was sold to a Florida company called Boccafe LLC this past summer. Both companies were unaware that Walker was making payments on the house. It is unlikely that she will retain ownership of the home.
“There should be some kind of safety net, step by step, to tell you what to do,” she said. “Justice has to be done. Period. We’ve got to come up with a remedy for this, and it’s got to be justice.”
Hear more from Walker about this incident via the YouTube video below.
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