09 Feb Ep. 62 Serial Squatters with Jeff and Shelly Coffman of MissouriSellNow.com

TRANSCRIPTION

Before we begin I just want to mention today we’re gonna be talking about a lot of different legal aspects and we wanted to remind you that none of us are attorneys and we strongly encourage you to consult your own attorney to verify anything we’re discussing hey this is Adam Kruse owner Broker of the Hermann London real estate group and host of the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast and this is Shannon St. Pierre a real tour at Hermann London and co-host of the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast before we begin we just want to say that we are a real tourist which is different from someone who is simply an agent the term real tour identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict code of ethics and even though it’s called the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast this show is for everyone who’s interested in real estate buyers sellers REALTOR®s HGTV Watchers everyone so if this specific episode isn’t exactly what you’re looking for go through our past episodes and I guarantee you’ll find a topic that interests you and there’s a topic you want us to cover email us at podcasts at Hermann London calm that’s Hermann H er ma & N London calm and we’ll talk about it on an upcoming episode thanks for listening and enjoy [Music] live from the rooftop of the Hermann London real estate group in beautiful downtown Maplewood it’s the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast with Adam Kruse and Shannon St. Pierre welcome welcome everybody to the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast I’m your host Adam Kruse broker and owner of Hermann London REALTOR®s here with my co-host Janet St. Pierre hello say hi Shannon Shannon is a friendly local REALTOR® investor rehabber all of the above right correct we are excited today because if you haven’t seen the news story from KMOV there’s a they did a news story recently about serial squatters and we have the people from the news story here Jeff and Shelly and welcome guys thank you very much for coming in and talking about your story you know we wanted to bring you in today to learn about what happened and we wanted to figure out how we can help this not happen to other people but if you don’t mind kind of introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background my name is Jeff Coffman obviously I got into real estate investing late 2014 started off with just doing doing quick fix and flips and stuff like that and been rolling along here I finally quit my job as able to quit my job two and a half years ago it’s awesome yeah congratulation thank you and everything’s rolling along fine finally we got to the point where we were able to get Shelley to quit her job Oh congratulations right so if you if you time this story right and when this all started happening it was right around that time I mean we started off with a huge challenge you know right off the bat so so you mainly focus on fix and flips primarily yes okay so you don’t do you do buy and holds as well I do I do a lot of creative financing so that’s that’s kind of my that’s my gig you know I really like the creative side of things so what do you mean by creative financing I love to do so two deals subject to deals and you know targeting pre foreclosures and and distressed homeowners is that how you find your properties buy and hold stuff yes I do I do a lot of my own marketing well I do all of my own marketing to do wholesaling as well I do it’s just not my favorite thing to do it’s a really really tough business I’m super high speed and it’s just I don’t find it very I don’t find it fun yeah you can tell we’re kind of real estate nerds because you’re like Oh real estate well we’d like to talk more about that right yeah and you know you mentioned subject twos that’s something we’ve never actually done a podcast on but in two sentences or whatever you’re you’re basically buying a property subject to the existing mortgage correct do you have to give the homeowner something I wanna cater to yeah so on occasion I try to avoid hurting credit if poss if at all possible so I sort sales sometimes it’s just you know it just calls for a short sale it’s nothing you can do I’ve had houses given to me for free and I’ve had houses where I’ve paid you know paid a seller out to walk so it just all depends but you are correct you know you just take over you’re taking over someone’s mortgage or you know we use what I like to say is we don’t assume the mortgage we assume the debt we take on the debt correct and when does it transfer out of their name as soon as as soon as possible as soon as we can get it done that’s that’s part of my kind of part of my shtick is I make them I can make it a super super fast process I do all my own closings you don’t do mostly kitchen-table closings as some people might know them so it’s just basically contracts between you and the owner of the home correct it’s what you mean by a kitchen table contractor well you say it’s correct III normally if I’m if I’m being honest I don’t buy title policies very very often anymore I just I do my title search I actually go out and pay for the title search have them exam you know have them examine it and go over with me make sure I’m totally comfortable with whatever’s on title just pay them outright for the title search and exam okay well we’re gonna have to have you back let’s do it they’re interesting way that you’re doing real estate investing but we’ve got to get down into this hole this is a podcast all about squatters and serial squatters right and well that’s I guess the term were using because well we’ll find out how but do you want to talk a little bit about yourself Shelly it’s kind of funny with this you know when Jeff started this business I was still at in corporate management loving that role but just seeing some of the success that Jeff was having and the purpose of the company was definitely a motivating factor so being able to see a certain segment of helping folks being able to rehab homes in the community and then helping folks get into them really appealed to me so I liked that part of the vision so after some peer pressure I guess a little bit I kind of decided to take the jump so it’s been an interesting adventure for the last six months yes yeah so what what happened why are we here we talked about squatters I think immediately Adam what comes your mind is usually someone taking over a vacant property and you find that they’ve been quote-unquote squatting in the property something like that yeah yeah it’s traditionally what we think of as a squatter I mean is that even fair for you to say Jeff and Shelly is what you probably had in your head and never thought of this high-end whatever almost I mean it’s a high-end squatter Creek previously my thought was is you know Jeff goes in to take a look at these houses and there’s evidence that people are living there you know and not necessarily the best conditions that stereotype is not our situation right which is the homeless person stumbles into our house warm or something like that correct this is like professional squatting this is professional squatting with very malice intent and with very beautiful homes this home in particularly is absolutely a stunning home so not at all what you would expect to think of as a quote-unquote squatter yeah this is not your typical definitely what you guys described was really is really what I thought you know I’ve been right right right and sure I bought houses what happened sure where to begin let’s start from the beginning we we got a great opportunity to do a rehab on a beautiful home in Hazelwood yeah so this was December of actually I’d been I’ve been following up with this seller for almost a year I was finally able to get this to get his home at a good price and we had a six-month long rehab on it this was purchased through using private funds really really good just a great private lender we worked on this thing for about six months rehabbing it rehabbing it and it came out beautifully was as she said I mean came out to be just a dynamite in the story yes it’s a nice house good taste yes a very good taste we’ll give him that so to get into the meat of the story roughly approximately two months before we were done with this house so around April timeframe somewhere in March of 2019 so March March April and in that timeframe I all these dates are running together on me I was approached by this gentleman Jordan Harris and he walked into the house knocked on the door walked into the house you had a sign I had a dumpster in the driveway that was it house wasn’t for sale we were still in you know in the middle of you know were coming off the last third of I’m sorry the first two thirds of completing this project and we still had a dumpster and we keep a dumpster in the driveway almost the entire time we’re working on a house so he knocks on the door comes in the house and asked when the house is gonna be done he’d like to come back and see it I said well we’re about you know a month to two months out depending on you know what our finished work looks like so fast-forward we get the rehab done I mean we are two days from having this thing done the guy shows back up at the at our at our door I mean like clockwork I couldn’t believe it I thought it was just long gone you know and I never followed up with him or anything sure and that’s very typical people stop by hey what you doing right you selling in it when’s it gonna be on the market right questions yep literally time perfect time I don’t know if that was intended you know I don’t know if he maybe had it on his calendar or something I have no idea so he walks in says he’s really interested in it he’s you know kind of sees what’s going on I walk him around the house he quote falls in love with it and says I like put a contract on it and you know as a as a rehabber mm-hmm that is the number one I mean that is the greatest thing that you can possibly hear right so immediately I you know in retrospect I look back now my guard is automatically I’m like oh you know I’m feeling good like all right it was great yeah this is fantastic I don’t have to list this thing I can just you know sell it we get further into the into the process he he actually I sent him a contract I don’t know how how maybe like a week later in for clarification are you a licensed real estate agent I’m not to do this all your own contract right so correct this is not a SLAR contract or anything like that it’s my own that I had developed and created okay puts the house under contract and there’s no indication really right up front that there’s any anything going on I mean I mean do you ask for a pre-approval letter did I did that’s where I was just going that’s it pre-approval letter I got the pre-approval letter and you do it what do you look at you go okay I did I step right right I looked at it and I go okay this is great but I I still I’m gonna need to speak with your lender I want to speak with your lender and everybody would know who this lender is they’re they’re pretty pretty large in the St. Louis area okay so I call up the lender and lenders like yeah I mean he’s great everything’s everything’s good and you know we’ll honor that that pre-approval as long as he’s got this some some credit issue some credit blemish that they’ve got to get straightened out but he didn’t allude to that it was a large blemish or some blemish no it was a large hurdle correct it was a it was I want to say it was an IRS lien I’ve learned since that that’s not actually what it was it has something to do with the state of Missouri and the Division of Economic Security okay but there but there was this lien in place okay and I have n but you had the vet lenders not only that but the lender had all certification the lunch is usually it when we’re in question we call the lender and just kind of try and fill out the lender on how credible the buyer is right and the lender had checked into this lien as well apparently and it was valid you know there was some validity to to him actually writing this pre-approval letter so at this point I’m feeling good and I said okay let’s do this we’ll need you know this amount of earnest money up front and and this and that about three to four days later Jordan contacts me and he says hey I’ve notified my I notified my I think he said it was an apartment at the time I’ve learned that he then he jumps around it’s a story for everybody that I have to be out by this date and he said I’m not gonna have my credit issue resolved in that amount of time can I take possession prior to closing and I said no Bert you know I said no but what I will do is I’ll write you a 30-day lease if we can’t get this house closed and those in that 30 days you gotta go you gotta leave and that was the beginning of my troubles that’s how it all started well the interesting we’ll back up for possession prior to clothes is something that does come up even for us as real estate agents occasionally we have and it is typically oh we have to get out of our apartment by the 30th not closing until the second or something of the sort we come up against it only rarely and occasionally but Adam your viewpoint on it is well that’s like it forbidden form to use which is why I like you must have done 2016 right yeah well now the St. Louis real estate in the Missouri Commission does have a form but they actually say on the form we do not recommend this our doing you said you said no but you wanted to kind of honor his ability to move in and you thought you’d be more protective through using a lease correct yes at least I had some sort of legal binding contract be able to hold them to if I had to if I had to a victim that was these terms right okay and at that time you know in retrospect you know stupid mistake but he was still very what’s the word I’m looking for he was still very bored right I mean yeah being open being honest wanting to I mean this girl just said all the right things this way it seems too good to be true but I’m gonna go with it situation that sounds like it was kind of more like normal he he had a little bit of problems right which made it not too good to be true and you guys were communicating and all that stuff right okay and so you read at least Mindy dude when you typically write at least you do all the background checks normally on some of your buying homes so coming back to yes I do and I found a couple of previous evictions one was in St. Charles one was in one was in St. Louis so do a background check prior it wasn’t a fool now it wasn’t as thorough as I should have done so I did some sort of background check it should have brought up some red flags right had there and it did I guess my thing and he was very open about that too he said you know I have had some problems in my past but I’m not trying to rent a rental property for me I’m trying to you know I want to buy this from you I want it and you know at that point I mean that’s a pretty good line right like that’s a valid point there are so many little this guy’s like a massive he could be a master salesman I mean he really there’s a lot of things that he would that I found really odd that he said but there were a lot of things like wow this is really making sense you know we’ve talked before about how like criminals if they would just put their you know power superpowers yeah absolutely but you know this is where it came comes back to my comment about malice intent mm-hmm yeah the one thing that really struck me was you know you have looking around this office you have you have artwork on the walls you have pictures on the walls when he finally did move in he asked me will you help me hang some pictures on the walls and I said no I said I really don’t want holes in the walls you know to begin with so my my point behind that is he had he didn’t have enough sense to be able to hang his own pictures he didn’t know how to do that but he’s organized this whole scheme this whole master plan of how he acquires these houses I just thought that was rude something that that really stuck out hang my pictures my point my point is that you don’t have enough sense to know how to hang pictures but you can you can scan be this man nappy master manipulator and you have this whole system I mean I’m talking from the from the acquisition of the house all the way through the eviction was just and we’ll get into the details over a little bit more but I actually had to go to trial with this guy yeah so you write it 30-day lease right and so then he moves in and you do the background check you do like the typical stuff that you would do if you’re going to lease out of property but you’re doing it for 30 days he moves in he does okay with his mom right I moved in on July 2nd and and his this should have been a huge red flag for me but it wasn’t because I do actually I do actually charge extra for this but he didn’t want to put his mother on the lease and I have a provision in my contract my my lease agreements that essentially anybody who is not on the lease is an extra hundred dollars per month to be in the home what do you require background checks or not all individuals over 18 well I didn’t I didn’t on her so it was my mistake I didn’t I didn’t really well normally would in fact I would normally require that anybody over the age of eighteen must be on the least on the lease no matter what right first better protection right right again he even mentioned his mom because you even know if she was well I knew of his mother I had just finished up another house up there and this is on the news story as well I just finished up another house in Florissant much smaller home thousand square feet gorgeous little house I mean it’s it was on it was on market for three days I mean it sold really fast and I showed them that house and as soon as they walked in I could see on their faces that you know this wasn’t for that I mean they kind of had that that body language of no this isn’t this isn’t for us and they they didn’t want anything to do with that house so they opted for the much larger much more lavish lavish dome right that’s where we were at at that point is we moved in and then 30 days goes by and you show up for the first rent he gave me $500 up front $500 towards the first month’s rent and then from that point on he went dark there was never responded to there there was oh he would respond and he would even one of his arguments and he used to he did a lot of text messaging he’d like to Rico any like to record my phone calls so his he wanted to have his text for Court in fact we were when we were in court he did pull his phone out and showed him you know a lot of these texts but he wouldn’t he would say hey I would like to get together and pay you this pay you this rent pay this rent money and he texted as well and I’d say great where can we meet you know I’d I wouldn’t mind getting paid he would never ever show up not one time I gave him my I gave him a venmo login I gave him a cash app name I gave him Facebook payments yeah all the opportunity in the world so let’s just pause here because I think that this is very important with the strategy is he’s recording with his phone conversations that hey I want to pay you and with all of the technical text messages of painting that picture of I want to do right I want to pay you the interesting part is every time that there was an agreement to actually take place and let’s be honest with venmo or any type of electronic payment all you have to do is okay like so let’s just buy we love it yes that’s why we love it makes it very easy there’s it’s it’s you can do it on your phone for goodness sake but I want to just pause Jeff for a little bit because I think it’s just so important that this is part of painting the picture that he will use down the road to extend his yes I see where this conversation is kind of going when he it’s communicating but now are you communicating back via this text hey you didn’t show up I did not only that but I use my like you and so I’m able to track every single mile that I travel so the meetings that we set up for him to make a cash payment or higher who’s gonna do it were tracked on my phone so I because I did go back and I was like oh man you know he’s got this stuff on his phone what’s gonna be my defense here you know how are they ever gonna know that he didn’t pay this and then I realized well I’ve got my like you so but yeah every day I sat out in front of the house for two hours one night waiting for him to show and show up we agreed to be there to meet at the house he was going to make a payment I don’t even know which month it was anything past 30 days is just kind of irrelevant at that point but I said on from the house for two hours and never showed up you’re not getting rent you know time is going by are you like are we are you buying this house are you what is happening here and did you ever reach out to the lender to say where we at in this process I tried many times well first my first red flag after he moved in was and never received artists money so my earnest money is due three days within three days after signing a conscious contract so the purchase contract is still enforced by the way correct and when we just did this lease agreement in addition to right right so I bet earnest money was never deposited it was never escrow so he’s already out of contract so to speak correct yeah so and he had an explanation for that as well that explanation was well I don’t I don’t want to pull that out because that’s gonna affect how much down I can I’m gonna have to put you know it’s gonna pull money out of out of my savings account and I tried tell him like you understand that that’s not going to have an effect on it this is yeah I’m trying to process that but okay there were there were a lot of little things like that I fast forward just a little bit it wasn’t until about maybe a couple weeks after that I realized either one there’s much more going on here as far as this lien that he was talking about or that’s when I really started getting the beginnings a beginning thought of I know yeah so get starts talk yeah so did you reach out to the lender I did and I did multiple times I actually only spoke with him once I sent him a couple of emails and then after that he went completely dark lender did yes yes and I’m not gonna throw anybody under the bus but ya know 30 days now you’re starting to collect trying to collect the rest of the money how long was it before you took whatever your next step was it was a 10 day notice to quit that I posted on the door and that was at about it was about the 60-day mark right around the 60-day that’s what I really realized 10 day notice to quit it really doesn’t have a whole lot of doesn’t have a whole lot of legal backing right yeah it’s just my way of saying hey you’ve got you’ve got ten days to pay this pay this in full or you or you you know I’m starting the eviction process okay right okay nothing yeah I got a bunch of phone calls from them yeah I can’t believe you’re doing this and really just trying to guilt trip you and and things like that and then and then let’s see I don’t remember so 10 days goes by 10 days goes by and then process because that end of itself is usually I did yep shortly after that I started the eviction process again my dates or kind of mixed up but got a hold of the attorney paid the attorney get everything filed we ended up having a the initial hearing was on Halloween Day of 2019 I mean appropriate it’s extremely scary to be honest with you I wish I could have concentrated more on Halloween that day I was right so but but I didn’t so she you know I was in I was advised that you know that I didn’t even have to show up for that that it was just going to be a hearing if he didn’t show up I didn’t have to show up career journey go yes yes you did so but Jordan actually showed up to the court date showed up he did and contested it and contested he did so again here’s one of those Missouri I’m gonna say Missouri because I don’t know every state loopholes yes right with evictions is if you show up and contest they they they issue a continuance the judge will issue a continuance and they want to have probable or justification or probable cause for that can like their I don’t know that they do in this case he did because he had the purchase agreement so he he tried to claim that this was some sort of like a like a like a lease option deal or a lease purchase deal so the judge immediately goes okay you know this could lead this could get into different different areas of the law than just a fiction Court so the judge you know gave thee or the continuance and how long is a continuance that continuance lasted and they well I think they do it’s just based on workload in the course but this one what was our court date was a December and he was December first no we’re talking December 5th was when it was Halloween to December 5th over so just over a month later you show up yep in court in court and now you’re acquiring more attorney fees I bet by the way it just it wasn’t terrible i she’s really good and she’s she’s she’s done stuff for me before so okay lost lost friend yeah yeah lost lost income losses we all know when prime prime season is for selling homes in this area so you know once I get past August I’m just like okay you know this is this is it it’s gonna be tough to sell this house I mean springtime around here is just anything first time that we’re in the city I mean like we don’t find that so much in the city city true that’s true city proper yeah so but yes we do find that suburbia alright so we’re back at the court date and at this at this particular court date you have you can still either go through I don’t know what’s the word I’m looking for I’m at a loss for words that’s where you can you can settle who P if we can agree upon something so that it doesn’t go to trial believe it or not the courts will let you settle it so they don’t have to okay can we settle it that he gets out like right okay we would have to I would agree that he can just get out that’s done see that the place is empty before court I will cancel the court right okay but instead of settling he opted he actually let me go back just one second the day before this court date is when he hired his attorney so he opted to go to trial and I’m not kidding literally they were setting up their case while we were sitting in trial they were going through records and all of this nonsense and the judge was just like no you’ve had you know you’ve had 35 days to find somebody right right kudos to the judge yeah the judge was great in this one but so we wait so I’m sorry you think that he this is part of his little Master Mind Tricks he’s hoping the judge is gonna go oh you’re not ready that was exact plan because and like I said prior to us actually getting on air here I can wander off because there’s so many things that intertwine with these stories yeah and let’s keep in mind we’ve got the text if I’m trying to pay I’m trying to so it is interesting so he he tries to actually get he I’m not sure that I can’t honestly say that that was his intention or a tactic that he used sir but he hires the attorney the day before were set to go to trial and then ask for another continuance in the meantime I had posted in these Facebook groups he’s investor Facebook groups about what was going on and about the eviction and I posted pictures of them be careful of these people you know watch you know here’s what’s going on I was just just truthful and so he’s in the meantime while he knows that this court date is coming up he’s reaching out to all these different investors that I know agents investors people that have tried to set up a new place find a new place so he’s just like he stole my can find a new place he probably would have been out of yours Reiner right 100% okay yep so the judge does not grant the continuance again so we have to go to trial that day that day so December 8th or whatever correct I’m sitting in this trial and this guy just pulls out all the stops I mean I’m talking we spent $80,000 on the rehab on this house this guy he tried to claim that the house was uninhabitable that’s what that’s what he actually said out loud because there was no past municipal inspection or because he was saying no no it passed it passed one of the things that happened shortly after he moved and there’s in the it’s got a main level washing wash area laundry area and the little hose bib one of the hose bibs was leaking we didn’t know we had no idea so it it had dripped down and it was a tuck under garage and it got a damaged part of the drywall inside of the garage so I got a plumber out there we paid to have have the hose bib replaced while he was in there not while he was in there this is this was really early this was new complaints right well this is when he first moved in okay so we didn’t have uses we didn’t really use any of that plumbing for much of anything this developed just right after he moved in sir so I got over there we got it fixed and that was one of the items that he brought up in court was that the house was uninhabitable because of this water damage this water spot well I tore out the I tore out the drywall in that spot to cut it out and and just to try and see where it was coming from let everything dry out really well yeah and that was one of these items he also claimed that the house had extremely low water pressure and that made it uninhabitable as well well I found out later on after this was all said and done I went in the house I turned on the faucet and I’m like yeah this place has really low water pressure that’s odd I’ve never noticed this before as it turns out the water meter out front you do rehab so I you may know this a lot of those water meters that that you know from the water that the water company has to come out and physically turn on most of those valves leak almost all of them do they had well I’d say about 50 percent is what my experiences so they actually came out and shut their water off due to non-payment that valve leak the only the only way they got water in that house was because I think that leaking valve in the street correct so they’re not paying their other bills either that is correct they did leave a bunch of mail there so I know they have a lot of outstanding bills there so is this judge falling for this I mean they’ve seen this all before right I mean oh you had if low water pressure that’s reason to not pay your rent this is if he was falling for it he didn’t he didn’t display that at all I mean he if I could describe this this the scene in this courtroom to you you know when you have an attorney represent you if you speak through your attorney you you almost never unless you’re asked to speak out you almost never say anything your your attorney represents you and this guy was standing up just making a total I mean it was just bizarre it was just a bizarre scene you could tell he was getting frantic he wasn’t things weren’t going the way that he wanted them to go in trying to have straws in trying to approach you and when Jeff basically said I’m I’m not speaking to you then he sent his mother Barbarita Jimerson over to talk in cup yeah in court and and I just kind of looked at her and I held my hands I was like I’m sorry I can’t I can’t talk to guys you know I just literally anything that came out of their mouths at that point was a was a plea to get them you know that to get them to stay in the house that’s all this so what’s the result of this court they or this trial or this what happens I won that so I knew that I wouldn’t I still know that I’m not gonna see any money out of this you know and that’s not that’s not really what I’m after at this point right never really was x-1 them out sure but you did win the judgment I did when the judge in this on this specific date the judge actually Awards you a judgement and no not an eviction no no with the so there are two different types of evictions there there’s rent possession and then there’s unlawful detainer so with rent possession if he had paid if he was able to pay that judgment that day by 5:00 p.m. he could have actually stayed in the house in the house I just knew he didn’t have the money to do it so I so the unlawful detainer are the cases where okay let’s say that you have a lease in place but you know and I’m not an attorney so I’m gonna disclose that but you have a lease in place but say you want to sell the house or you just want to get out of the business get a lease in place that’s expired their their month a month but they don’t want to leave you can you can sue for unlawful detainer and take possession of the house get them out of the house okay so mine was a rent possession case though they had 10 days to pay that back is what it was so it was another settlement that was offered that they could have paid by 5:00 p.m. that evening so they have 10 days to pay that or get out after that 10 days expires then you have to call for the sheriff okay come out and forcibly evict them couple days or weeks later it’s all dependent upon their workload for me it was December 30th it was Monday December 30th yes oh you’re calling about December 15th this date this court date was December 5th they had 10 days to come up with the money or you call the sheriff correct the sheriff doesn’t like to kick people out like right before Christmas and stuff well it’s funny you say that because when I when I called the sheriff the initial date they gave me was like January like January 3rd or something like that and I just told him I was like man I really stinks because I I would really like to be have these guys out before them and he called me back like I don’t know 20 minutes later he says we had something open up we can get you and on December 30th thank you so they did spend Christmas there but New Year’s they were they were not able to spend New Year so on December 30th was that video we see of them moving out yeah that’s just some birthday 30th this is where it gets really interesting so they started on December 29th everyone I was actually working on another house up in North County and so but Chris niggas with KMOV showed up on the 29th he wanted to get trying to get their side of story this whole time they just they’re silent they don’t they don’t offer any kind of explanation for what’s going on Chris is trying to contact them call him he’s tried to find out where you know where Jordan works and and again this is where my my squirrel brain is gonna go off on a different tangent nobody ever knows where Jordan works I did find out where his mother works and that was at the that was the Lowe’s in Baldwin she was I can’t 100% verify that this was her role but I was told that she was the head cashier at that Baldwin was I actually made a trip up there and spoke with her manager and so I think’s and there was one other person that did the same thing just to kind of let him know hey this is you know this this is what we’re dealing with this is the kind of person and she’s a lot of money passing through her hands I don’t know yeah do what you want way to do what you want with the information so Chris goes out on the 29th and that’s when we see him fill in their truck well there were two days they had two separate trucks okay they had a ton of furniture I mean this place was really really good well when you don’t pay rent yeah you can afford really nice things by the way it’s funny as I’m watching them load this truck I’m going wow look what I bought him looking I bought him a 65 inch TV oh great yeah it’s fantastic so you were there the day yeah I was not there the on the 29th when they had the big truck so the way that that went down was Chris was there the movers were they had they hired a moving company the movie company comes in well Chris when Chris shows up Jordan locks the door he slams the door won’t let them back in the house to move any anything you know and so there’s a Facebook live video this one of the movers starts a starts up Facebook live and he’s kind of explaining what’s going on sir they’re jordan calls what is this mover a friend or a third party just somebody just we don’t know okay so they were hired by Jordan right okay right so we don’t know right it’s not Jordans friend or he wouldn’t be doing a Facebook live kind of correct that’s right I didn’t knew him so one of the one of them one of my guys one of the contractors surprising but one of my contractors is actually well one of my guys actually worked on the house happened to be a member of this Facebook group and said hey turn you know turn it on you can see what’s going on over there I didn’t want to be anywhere near there you know I you know I just want somebody else to handle it kind of thing right and so I got to watch everything that went on that day and what you see on that on TV on that on that yeah that’s actually the next day when they’re finally like that’s their last day there they’re getting everything out I thought they were gone the night before I showed up over there and I see a big u-haul parked in the parked out front you showed up over there to meet the sheriff correct yep just to make sure correct yep so I want to go back one-one second because I want to I want to get into this paying the movers and paying paying people because this is a pattern here about what’s the day today today is six so approximately eight weeks ago part of their scheme is they actually had this house inspected your house correct okay by a very very very well-known company here in St. Louis you would know this company sorry in fact I don’t think it’s wrong to say their name because they do great work it’s pillar to post oh yeah so Kevin from pillar to post comes out he inspects it we go through this whole thing and you make repairs based on the inspection as in normal transaction I did I made some of them because it point I’m kind of you know I don’t want to get I don’t want to get a bunch of money sunk into it when I don’t know I just something just still didn’t didn’t feel right there right you have until closing right right mm-hmm so Kevin calls me and this is about eight weeks from today in the past he calls me says hey do you know how I can get a hold of Jordan Harris and I said I do but let me guess you haven’t been paid and he said well they attempted to pay but the information that we got is not valid information so did they attempt to pay via check or give one wrong number on their credit card or some credit card they attempted to pay with a credit card that and that’s what Kevin told me so so that did not go through and now that was a $600 inspection yeah and then the movers I got a call I’m not exactly I think it was through Facebook becuase I responded through remember when I told you the movers where had that that live stream going I responded to one of them to the guy that was recording that and I said give me a call a little bit later on Alex because they wanted to know what was going on and so I ended up talking to him later on and as it turns out I don’t know what the details of this was but they the owner of the company called me and apparently there was some some shifty some shifty business going on with him where they were afraid they weren’t gonna get paid as well so they from what he told me they were they were telling Jordan we’re not unloading this truck until we get paid and so I’m assuming that he paid them they moved to his storage they moved all of his stuff to a storage so we’re keeping the truck right right right correct but like a good strategy yeah so I mean I could just yeah in the news story you see them pushing lawn mowers into the backyard yeah the neighbor’s yard right and when they were doing that outstanding right there and when they were doing it I said you know there’s no way that these I just don’t think these neighbors they weren’t the kind of neighbors that would loan you or lend you to to lawn mowers why would they be pushing those into their backyard and so I went over knocked on the neighbor’s door and they confirmed no there’s no those are not our lawn mowers well anything that after an eviction like that anything that’s left in the house whether you want it or not becomes your property so I went over and got the lawn mowers put him back in the in the garage then I brought my vehicle back later I don’t know maybe a week later or something like that actually took those lawn mowers home I was gonna try and sell them and I got a call from Chris again that he was speaking with somebody out and Saint Charles that they had done this to as well that that Harrison Jimmerson had done this to as well oh and by the way there was a stolen lawn mower they stole a brand-new lawn mower from him and I was like well crap I kind of wanted to sell it I said but you know put him in touch with me if if it’s there you’ll take a picture and I did it’s a sentiment picture the big kicker was he was using this lawn care business that he had this supposed side side hustle this this lawn care business in addition to his primary job he was using that as income too you know for these lenders that he was talking to he would say hey I’ve got my job and then I’ve got a side hustle I own a lawn service now I can only surmise that those two lawn mowers had something to do with that I don’t know he would he would basically manufacture income it’s a correct I make $500 a month mowing lawns or whatever and that would help his debt to income ratio oregano you got it yep so I just find it and then it’s arranged the pre-approval letters prior to when the lender would have wanted to see okay let me see that money hitting your bank account right right and tax returns and so on so forth so we went through three different lenders one of them was my lender you know keep in mind I’m still thinking that they’re gonna buy this house so I’m I am backing out I know around a lot but there’s just a lot to be told after this first guy I said we’ve got to go somebody else this guy’s gone dark let’s try my guy burger lender so you never hear back from their lender nope he just goes completely dark no email no nothing nothing okay zero so I have him talked to my lender and just who actually did he did I didn’t want him to I wasn’t necessarily looking for I was more looking for well is this guy gonna be qualified given this information so they those to speak and according to my lender he’s like if what he’s telling me is true then this shouldn’t be a problem I can probably have this funded in two weeks so at what point did he talk to your lender and it’s just verbal so this is Bert this is verbal yeah this is I mean this is problem I mean this is prior to that I kind of look at that 60-day that that two month mark where I go okay I’m being scammed it was some time prior to that okay I said let’s get your information over to him if anybody can get it done I know he can get it done he comes back a couple days later he says I found another lender with a very very well known company in the St. Louis area and this guy was just no-frills here’s what it is I need this information by this date and if I get it I can get this done no problem not one shredder paperwork never showed up at his desk I have just thread after thread and emails of trying to get this information out of Jordan so at that point that was when I finally was real like hey I got to get this guy out of my house so when did you start learning there’s other victims because you’re it’s the process so they moved out that day and then what happened because we’ll get into that okay the the eviction day in itself was just a lot of strange behavior was bizarre if I may because I think that this is important if you’ve seen the news program you see some other hostility in their behavior um you know we were there at eviction day ready for the sheriff we had contractors and the Chris Nagus news 4 investigates team was there what was interesting that there was some gentleman wearing a mask yeah concealing his identity instead of them focusing on getting the rest of their belongings and just leaving and just being rid of this situation what ended up happening is Jordan we don’t know who else I don’t know if it was his mother and this I’m just gonna call him the masked man for lack of a better term came by and literally stalked us while waiting and they did this many times not only that the gentleman who was masked got out came up videoed me and the car videoed us in the car videoed my car videoed our license plates detective it’s a scare tactic intimidation tactic and did this like what was it like six or eight times so constantly coming back this is all while you’re waiting on the sheriff yes so I’m gonna throw my my two cents into this and this is just kind of just an added bonus I mean all of this is really irrelevant to the to the overall this overall story but so I went I went armed because the sheriff is only there for 30 minutes he’s got 30 minutes to clear the house and then whatever happens after that is kind of up to you so I actually went armed and Jordan is driving up and down the street six or seven times they’ve got tinted windows I mean we were we were all a little we were all on edge everyone’s driving then after the sheriff left well this is before this is before the sheriff even got there okay so they they got in and what you saw on the news with with them speeding off that was supposed to be their last hurrah like that was supposed to be them exiting the the property and being done with it but that’s not what happened what happened was they kept driving back and forth Jordan was in the driver’s seat back and forth six or seven times and so they finally left I thought they’d had enough they left out they were gone for a good a good while this last time last time they left out of the neighborhood and this is all before the sheriff this is all before the show this year no no not at all they were just gone they were just okay it was just happened to be that it was they were leaving before the sheriff after never showed up I’m sitting in the car with her they hadn’t showed up for a while I said well I’m gonna take a walk up my contractors who were there to help me change locks everything work in front of the house at parked directly in front of house so I walked up you know keep mine I have a sidearm on me and I I walk up and I’m I’m standing at the driver’s side door in in the street and I see his car up the street getting ready to turn back down to come down to where we were so I very very very purposefully walked around I did not want him to see my firearms first thing that came to my mind like he’s gonna freak out you know this is not a good situation so I walked around to the other side he pulls down parks next to her car the masked Marauder gets out again and starts videotaping everything just her rent just harassing you know and that gets back in the car they drive back up well I’m my sidearms exposed at that point and as Jordan rolled by he rolled his window down and he put his fingers and you know in the shape of a of a gun and said I got you and he you know kind of made that emotional yeah so at that point we went ahead and we called it Hazelwood Police out called 9-1-1 and we just didn’t want to have any part of harassment a shootout or anything crazy like that so they come they actually cleared the house for us they were there they were very very helpful I mean hats off to Hazelwood because I mean they’ve been you know in the beginning I actually tried to file a police report with him and they they really didn’t even take my name down but since all of this has come about I’ve been in constant contact with them throughout the whole you know pretty much the whole thing now they’ve just been they’ve been fantastic I mean just awesome I had an occupancy inspection done on the house yesterday it’s all past ready to go it’s amazingly it’s not uninhabitable right so the sheriff finally show up did we get these locks changed we actually Hazelwood offered to go in and clear the house for us and so we called we told the sheriff we’ve got it taken care of thank you very much move on to the neck yeah he was already late because they had 14 fiction scheduled that day yeah and so uh yeah we took possession immediately changed locks we put security system on the house and and that was it so now what have you sold the house the house I actually got an offer on it last night that I that I turned down but it is actively it’s on the MLS it’s listed mm-hmm okay and you’re gonna I guess this is where I’ve got a lot of questions Santa fires questions but so what are you gonna do different when you get your next offer my next offer we’re doing no lease absolutely that’s the bad thing that little house I told you that I had finished up that I showed them as well yeah then I walked them through I actually we had a problem at my buyers title company on that house and so I said you know I can’t deal with that title company let’s just move it to my title company we’ll have it done by Monday well same scenario that the buyer had told her apartment complex this is my debt this is my drop-dead date so so I said you know I knew the money was already escrowed so I wasn’t that worried about it at that point but I said you can move in Saturday we closed this on Monday and it’s done and everything went swimmingly like it was perfect master well again if they see you at the end of the transaction yes so yeah news well the Facebook post someone on the group saw the Facebook post and said would you be willing to talk to Chris Negus and of course Jeff says yes because again I speaking with you although you know work we’re ready to just stop the the biggest concern is just getting it out there so that’s how that happened a viewer made the connection yeah I I put the post out there you know I saw the pose I was interesting I was that was a very very it was just nerve-racking for me today because everyone talks about libel and slander and I just thought at this point yourself out there and be vulnerable to the comments of the other individuals within the group you know what I’ve had really good feet I mean yes there’s one there’s one or two always out there that just I’m did you know woulda shoulda coulda type stuff and it definitely definitely bothers me but well that’s hopefully that’s kind of one of the benefits of this sort of like you know because I mentioned this before but to be totally fair when I saw that news story I thought they should have done this they should have done that and talking to you you’re like I did that I did that I did that it’s like thought I knew what you did wrong but yeah I care my reason behind telling you about the the little house you know what you know letting her get in that house a little bit early a day early was that so I’m fresh off of this really good experience and and they come in and then just I’m just you know at this point I’m like putty you know I’m like alright this is great I’m rocking and rolling here she had just quit her job yeah and we had I mean that month that month of July and this is really where it it kind of has really really had a negative effect on just on my just on the way that I think in that and and things I’m able to get done but she had just quit her job and we were that month we were we were set we probably could have made that month and lived for the next year very comfortably in every bed that house alone was my marketing for the next year and a half yeah since yeah yeah so since that time I’ve just been I didn’t have a solid paycheck since July because of speaking of that are you gonna be able to garnish their wages garnished their bank accounts are you gonna give any chance of getting any money from them because you did have that and we we are unable to hire a lawyer to do any of that additional not only that he’s he’s very I mean these they’re just not there just not dumb people you know they’re very they’ve been through this many many times many people have tried to collect judgments on them and I from what I understand there’s been one or two people that have been able to garnish his wages if he doesn’t move jobs and not and you can’t garnish the mom’s wages because she’s never on the lease or the contracts correct actually there is a you can’t go out you can’t garnish her wages they actually tried to bring that up in court where they said well she’s wasn’t on the lease and then the judge while we were sitting there he looked it up through some you know whatever law book they may use and found it yeah it’s anybody it’s anybody that’s in the home that’s anybody yeah yeah also before the show you kind of mentioned that there was some sort of REALTOR®s involved what was the backstory on that so actually I found out when I made that Facebook post people just came out of the woodwork I mean it was just like all day all day long people hey I’ve dealt with these guys and I’m dealing with these guys right now oh they came out of the woodwork as in they did to me they’ve had interactions with or or in the process right right oh my gosh so this is not a dig on REALTOR®s but this is actually how this all started was through was through REALTOR®s and in what way what they would do is they would find a house that was listed they would use the REALTOR® you know and I don’t know if they were like targeting anybody can tell when a what their license number is when they were licensed right yeah I don’t know if they knew that or not so I didn’t claim that that that’s what they were doing but they were targeting homes that have were listed using the REALTOR® to make their offers back and forth the listing agent a buyer’s agent they had their own buyer’s agent correct well they would just call they would call it but yeah I don’t know if they had one my agent so when Branka alright right okay right and that’s exactly how they started doing this they graduated from that once I think there was kind of a fact one of the brokers that I spoke with has their their pictures placard placard on the walls okay in their office you’re not you know not to the other thing yeah this is what going on with these guys so once that kind of got around and they were they depleted that resource they started moving to to rent to own so landlords that would have a Lisa you know offer a lease option on house from what I understand that I don’t know I I’ve in fact I think maybe only one or two of those actually occurred I I don’t know how that went down I can’t speak to it I don’t know then he started targeting rehabbers so like for me when I asked him how did you even know that how did you know this house was available you know how did you know what’s going on he said God told me to turn down this down the street God told me to turn down the street and I saw the dumpster and so that’s what that’s what he’s doing does a good Christian person or whatever my gosh you just see that see how this weaves I mean it is it was literally once once you kind of got to know I kind of got involved in situation there was he would just like throw a dusting of religion in there like everyone you know every once in a while just enough to make you go okay yeah we share the same values yeah but yet that’s a lot yeah it was just it was it was good it was really good so more and more people like came out of the woodwork like investors homeowners like that this happened to me and you know how many did you come across well I found once I really dug into it I found out they were using they were using Barbara Rita’s last name for approximately the first the first eight of those roughly you know I don’t know that exact amount and I don’t know why they switched using his name I can only surmise that they kind of got her name in a bad spot as far as getting these getting these properties uh rented or however you want to look at her the point is they between the two of them they had these sixteen so I had those I found those 16 I had so you found 16 people individuals well I was prompted to go out and look at really do a deep dive on case net and so that’s how I found all of those but the people that responded on Facebook I would say that very first post that you saw I had a dozen at least a dozen just from that post alone yeah what’s the count for how many have said that they’re running the other way because of that I had lost track of that they would make call after call after call to people out there and we you know Mary mind we are not connected in any way to these people other than through this Facebook group and I I lost count how many people they actually talked to about getting into their home yeah and it’s the interesting thing is you know I can’t divulge who but this is with hotels too they get into a hotel and are forced through an eviction at hotels so you know when we talk about the intent it’s quite interesting well then so they’ll they go and they just never check out correct which credit card yeah but they run it right then and there maybe they turn it off or something I don’t know but I do know that if you think about the logistics that has to happen if you’re in a hotel they’ve got electronic keys I can shut off at any point so literally if you think about this this is what goes through my mind anyway somebody’s always got to be in that room till you know to let people in and out I don’t know I just think it’s what these people are doing this in every aspect of their life not just with their housing right they’re doing it with sounds like movers and water bills and everything else so I mean it when you did the background check that when we first when you had them sign the lease did not things show up I mean other than a couple of evictions and didn’t know other red flags like judgment after judgment do those not show up the problem with someone named Jordan Harris is there are there were four or five pages of Jordan Harris and you wanted to believe that those were different Jordan Harris well you don’t know which ones are which but yeah so essentially what you’re saying yeah true and you know like I said I did find a couple of evictions on him and he manned up he owned up to it and my mistake for not digging deeper they know yeah you asked earlier I mean it’s a total change in process I mean you know you want to try and if you’re in a position where you’re running your own business you you want to believe that you can make a difference and do the right thing and help folks that are are really wanting the joy of homeownership and to up until this point Jeff has had amazing experiences with being able to do that and to solve really hard problems and so where it comes down to this is I think within the community and you know whether you’ve done it yourself it’s just human nature is to think oh well I would never do that or I would never do this shoulda woulda could all that other kind of things again you know the point of speaking up is it’s the malice intent that’s that’s involved and you can just see that there’s a weave here of just of that for folks that really do are in a bad spot you know that really do need a help because it’s one or two days it’s unfortunate because we will never do this again ever right and so for the folks that we would help it’s kind of you know who talking about being a little gun-shy shy yeah I have a I have a really bad habit she’ll tell you this too I I’m a giving type of like giving type of person I’d like to see the underdog win at almost at risk of you know myself I’d like to do that I believe the good in people yeah and it’s just not even it’s nothing that I have to think about it’s just a it’s just my personality and yeah and she’s all she’s always telling me you’re given too much away you’re giving too much away and yeah I unfortunately I have to go against what might what my bones tell me to do now and I just I can’t do it anymore yep as we’re trying to wrap up the podcast here I think we’ve shared a lot of really good information but I want to ask if you guys have any perspectives about what you know Shannon and I or company or other listeners what can we do to help you or what can we do to help others you know in this situation shouldn’t first and foremost if this has happened to you whether it’s these these folks or anybody else contact the Attorney General if that does not happen they will not take it seriously and nothing will come of this in every victim that’s come before us will be for naught so please so the deal the movement is contacted during the Attorney General and sort of file a complaint about these people yes reach out let them know the details so that they can really start to take action and build a case okay can I offer the attorney if you have any had any interactions with Jordan aerosol Barbarita Jimmerson where you feel like you’ve been defrauded or or any Ally says any mal-intent you contact John shields at the Missouri attorney general’s office and his phone number his desk number is three one four three four zero three four one seven again his name is John shields he’s with the Missouri Attorney General’s office here in St. Louis well is yeah if people want to get a hold of you you obviously seem like really good people maybe there’s would you like them to reach out or kind of maybe they want to do business with you because you seem like an honest real estate business person sure I I like to work with agents on it’s kind of a I know I should make this quick but said I do I do creative deals so I work with real estate agents to get those done so if you’ve you or anybody out there has a deal that you just can’t get done maybe you’ve got a seller that maybe doesn’t have the equity to be able to afford a fee you know the in agents fee a buyer or listing agents fee get a hold of me I can still monetize that for you and you know we get the deal done and Jeff’s website is the company is Missouri cell now for the creative financing it’s sub2Empire.com let me get this straight sub two empire is a course I created on subject 2 investing okay but Missouri sell now for the agents out comm for the agents out there that that would seem that would like to monetize some some leads maybe that they can’t they can’t close that’s that’s my specialty that’s what I do love it and we will reach out to you if you’re willing and the future to come on and talk about all that I don’t think we’ve talked about subject to stuff at all in the podcast yet so he loves one percent it’s my beautiful favorite thing to do yeah that would be a good one so thanks again for coming in and for anyone who’s listening reach out with any questions we’d love to hear from you podcast@HermannLondon.com and take care