Kim and Greg Postelle’s children would finally have bedrooms of their own. Their two foster kids would have a wheelchair ramp to the front door. It wasn’t easy to find the thousands of dollars they needed up front to make it happen, but the family managed.
While their teenage son planned to turn his room into a video gamer’s paradise, his parents bought furniture and appliances for their new home.
For two months the couple cleaned and worked on the house they planned to make theirs with the help of a rent-to-own contract.
Then they found a foreclosure notice from the Sheriff’s Office on the front porch.
The owner of the home was behind on his mortgage payments. The bank was threatening to repossess the house.
“I was mad,” Greg Postelle said. “I was expecting to move into this house.”
Worse was breaking the news to the kids.
“They were unhappy,” Kim Postelle said. “I mean they’re teenagers but still they wanted their own rooms bad.”
The Postelles requested their two-month rent payment and deposit be refunded — a total $5,700. Two months later, they’re still in waiting — and hoping — to get their money back.
Rent-to-own too good to be true?
The Postelles found the home at 5535 Greenway Court, Kings Mountain, through an online Craigslist ad. It was exactly what the family of six needed.
The brick ranch house had a large kitchen, plenty of bedrooms, the necessary wheelchair ramp. And the rent-to-own deal suited their financial situation. They worked with a broker from a real estate company, Home Finders in Lincolnton, on a contract. It took the couple two months to raise the $4,000 deposit. They signed the contract and made the deal official Nov. 1. The couple agreed to pay $850 a month.
For the first two months, the Postelles made repairs to the house. They took out a broken window and installed a new one, fixed a dryer and bought a well cover.
They also bought new living room furniture and a refrigerator.
Then on Dec. 19 the letter arrived. Stamped with the official Gaston County Sheriff’s Office seal, the multi-page letter lay on their front porch, blocking the front door.
The Postelles had not known the owner, Jeremy Butler, was behind on his payments.
Butlerhas not returned phone calls from The Gazette. His mother, Melanie Armstrong, who says she handles affairs dealing with the house, answered his phone.
She said Butler knew he was behind on the house payments but not by how much.
He’d rented the home before the Postelles showed interest, but the renters moved out without notice.
“He wasn’t behind until the people moved out,” she said.
She said Butler didn’t know in December the house was close to foreclosure.
Breach of contract?
After the letter, the Postelles quit making their monthly payments.
“Why should I put any more money toward that home if he might not own it?” Greg Postelle asked.
Home Finder President Billy Mooneyham said he did not know the home was in foreclosure until the letter came. Still, he said, it’s not an uncommon situation.
“It happens,” he said. “It does not mean it’s going to get foreclosed on. People get served when your payments are behind, but as long as you’re talking to the bank, it’ll be OK.”
Mooneyham understands the letter might have spooked the Postelles.
“They got scared,” he said. “And I completely understand but they jumped the gun ...”
He insists neither he nor Butler is liable since the Postelles stopped paying on the house.
“I personally feel bad,” he said. “It’s a sad situation, but you broke your lease, you moved out.”
Still, he says he has agreed to give $4,000 back to the Postelles.
What’s ethical and what’s legal
Alexandra Mendoza, a spokeswoman with the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, can’t point to any law prohibiting a lease-to-own deal when a house is in or is close to foreclosure.
The question is ethical rather than legal, she said.
“Rule of thumb is if the president had known it was in foreclosure it would have been deceptive,” she said.
In most cases, rent-to-own agreements are legitimate business transactions, said Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell.
But even though there is no apparent deceit in the case of the Postelles, he says the arrangements create the opportunity for fraud.
“It’s a great way for someone to own a house that can’t otherwise, but it does open up avenues for scams,” he said.
Locke has seen scams in which families are duped with the promise of a home on which a lender has already foreclosed.
“The ones I’ve seen have been statewide with large organizations,” he said.
In some cases the homes are rented. Then the Sheriff’s Office comes to evict the renters, who are given 30 days to find a new place to live.
In Charlotte late last year a woman was charged with posing as a real estate agent to rent foreclosed homes. Police allege Mele Tonga rented two foreclosed homes she did not own.
‘We would’ve lost our kids
“We really don’t want to see anybody else done this way,” Greg Postelle said.
The incident has left scars.
“It kind of makes us like we don’t want to move anymore,” Kim Postelle said. “I don’t want to take that chance with anybody else again.”
Whether or not they get their money back, the Postelles say they’re lucky. They never moved, and they kept their old home.
“If we would’ve moved in and got kicked out, we would’ve been homeless,” Kim Postelle said. “We would’ve lost our kids.”
You can reach reporter Lauren Baheri at 704-869-1842 or Twitter.com/lbaheri.