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by Ashley

For those of you following along with my father’s saga (in case you’re new, he was diagnosed with a major disability and moved from Utah to Texas in November), I have a not-so-great update to report.

My uncle was tasked with keeping up with my Dad’s Utah home. This includes removing junk mail/mailers from door and mailbox, starting the remaining vehicle weekly, running water, and just general oversight (especially with below-freezing temps). Unfortunately, basically as soon as my Dad moved my uncle has been hit back-to-back with various health setbacks himself. This has put him in and out of the hospital and a rehabilitation facility and has basically meant my Dad’s house has sat unattended for long stretches of time.

I mentioned before that we were also friends with the next door neighbors. Every time I go up there we visit for a bit and give updates, and we’ve exchanged contact information (phone numbers and emails). Well, Saturday night I received an alarming email from them.

Apparently, an entire family (about 12 people total, all with same last name) has forwarded their mail to my Dad’s house. No one has actually seen the family (so they haven’t tried to move into the property), but their mail is popping up in my Dad’s mailbox. After some internet research, the neighbors discovered that this family has a recent (2012) bankruptcy and foreclosure. And there are a whole slew of people who are legally claiming my Dad’s address as their own.

This was my #1 concern with having a vacant property out-of-state. I know it may seem a little paranoid, but I’ve seen too many Dateline and 20/20 specials where families move into a vacant home and (by forging sale paperwork or deeds), take claim of the property. It turns into a LENGTHY court-battle to try to sort out the mess. It’s not as easy as just calling the police and having the people arrested. It’s a multi-month (and expensive) ordeal.

So I freaked out a bit. Immediately (late Saturday night), I filed a claim with the U.S. Post office about the mail forwarding issue, and I called the police department to file an official police report. Turns out the police know this family. They have a long history of fraudulent dealings. The police don’t think there’s any need to worry about the family trying to take possession of the property (their assumption is the address is being used as a way to gain employment or other government benefits..still fraud to be sure, but not on the same level as if they were to actually move into the house). Either way, I’m totally freaked. I want to get rid of this property, like YESTERDAY!

I’ve talked to my siblings, who were both proponents of keeping the property and renting it out. I basically said I do NOT want to deal with this house anymore. If they want to spearhead efforts to get it rented out then they can do so, but I’m done with this property. Not to mention we were advised by an elder care law attorney to get rid of the property (since its out-of-state there are apparently weird tax implications if we keep it). I’m not sure the timeline of things, but I think I’ve gotten my siblings to come around to the idea of getting rid of the property (fingers crossed).

My brother has offered to fly up in mid-February to do some make-ready stuff (it needs to be painted, minor repair work, etc.), and interview a couple different realtors. He’s also going to put up a camera that we can monitor from an app on our phones for the time being. Hopefully by early Spring we’ll be ready to get the house officially listed. The floorpan in the house is super weird (when my Dad bought it he basically made the entire basement into a giant master suite. What used to be a 5 bedroom house is now a 2 bedroom house…not very conducive to the typical Utah family). So I don’t know how quickly we’ll be able to get rid of it, but with any luck it will be gone by the end of summer. It will be great to not have to deal with that monthly mortgage payment every month (not to mention property taxes, utilities, etc.) I’ve been handling my Dad’s finances and it’s been a big headache to now fully manage 3 households (my own + my Dad’s 2 homes). I’m eager to downsize a bit.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? Am I wrong to freak out and just want to dump this home? What would you do?