Save Our Home

Hello, My name is Kaylene Lockwood. I am a mother of 4 and a grandmother. My husband and I run 2 businesses from home. We do not make a fortune but we do manage to make a living to support our family. I would like to step back in time for just a minute to explain how we got in this situation we are presently in. In September of 2005 we were gone helping my in-laws do some work to their home and while we were gone helping them, our home burned to the ground and taking with it all of our worldly belongings (including the handprints from our children’s Sunday school class when they were younger). We also lost our home based business because all our records for customers were in the house which we had spent several years building up. We regrouped in a larger town close to where we had been living and used the insurance money to buy a business that was up and running and had been for approximately 30 years. We needed an income to support our family having lost our income. This sounded like a good plan to get our family some stability and get us back on our feet again, not to mention that these people were supposedly friends of ours who we had family gatherings with and spent many hours with on a regular basis. We also found a home to buy, which after several months of living in a hotel and a very small rental property, things seemed to be finally settling down once again for our family. After running the business for several months it became apparent that there was something very wrong with the business and its potential to earn money. My husband and I at first thought it was us. That we were doing something wrong, until we obtained a copy of the day to day takings of the business from the previous owners book keeper. That is when we found out that the people who sold us the business had allegedly (We have to say that to protect ourselves until the court makes a ruling) falsified the accounts for the business. That is when all our problems really began. Needless to say it ended up in a lawsuit. Well here we sit 6 years down the road and the lawsuit has finally been finished in court. We are still waiting for the ruling on the case as it is still under advisement by the judge. It could still take 2 more months to receive the ruling. (We have been waiting since December of 2012) While we were in the middle of this suit we had to take money that should have been used to pay our home loan to pay lawyers so that we could proceed with the suit in court. We admit this was wrong and that we should have paid our home loan, but on the other hand we also needed to fight this lawsuit to stop us from going bankrupt. At this point we had found out that the people who sold us the business had also done the same thing to several other families and each one had had to file bankruptcy and lost everything they had. We wanted to stop this from happening to anyone else again and are reasonably assured we have achieved this goal by the lawsuit. As I stated before we used money that we should have paid our home loan with to pay the lawyer for the suit. If we had not fought this suit we would have been facing bankruptcy and lost our home through that. This made us behind with our home loan and eventually because we could not catch back up with the payments they started the foreclosure process on us. Our home is worth $265,000 and we only owe $132,000 on it. We were hoping that we would have had the result from the lawsuit and would be able to pay off our home loan. Unfortunately this has not happened. Back to the present day. On Friday, April 5th, 2013 we had the final hearing to finalize the foreclosure on our home. We discussed with our lawyer what the next step would be and he advised us that we had 30 days to appeal the judge’s decision or empty our home and move out. We left the courtroom that day with mind set that we had a few days to try to sort things out and get our decision hopefully from the judge on the other pending court case and pay of our home. On Tuesday, April 9th, 2013 at approximately 9 a.m. we were served by the local sheriff’s a paper that is called a Writ of Assistance. This particular law has not been updated from the 1800’s and is as I am sure you will agree is both unreasonable and unjust. This meant that we had to leave the house immediately. We were not granted 30 days to move out even though we have 30 days from April 5th to appeal the decision of the court. You can only imagine my surprise! I called our lawyer and asked to speak to him but he was busy so I left a message that we had been served with the Writ and what could we do. We sat waiting for about an hour if not longer and finally called him back to see if there was anything we could do. We were told he was still busy and hadn’t left a message to get to us so we began to get around so that we could be somewhat prepared as we had called the local sheriff’s office to see if this could be slowed down or stopped for the day as it was very bad weather out, we were having rain, sleet, snow and freezing rain! The Sheriff advised me that there was nothing he would be able to do as he just had to follow what he was told to do by the court. We began packing frantically and trying to gather anything that was valuable, and necessary for us to get by. We finally got to talk to our lawyer several hours later and he said to get what we had to be out of there that day. He also said he would be out of the office most of the day and he would be back in touch when he was out of court. We continued on getting things prepared and kept thinking surely there was going to be something our lawyer could file to get us back in our home and give us the time we needed to get things sorted out and get our things sold or packed up and moved. The sheriff’s office notified us that he would be out after lunch as the lawyer said he wanted us out right after lunch. We continued in a daze getting things ready to be moved. Our daughter and our granddaughter packed things as they were living there at the time also and she made arrangements to get as much of her things out as possible. We cried and hugged and tried to console each other that we were all alive, we had good health and we could make it through this as we had made it through many things and some were worse. We received notification that our son’s school was being let out due to the inclement weather. He would be out before too long and how did we tell him we had lost the house and we were homeless yet again (If you remember In 2005 our home burned down and we lost everything). At approximately 3 p.m. there was a knock at the door and it was the Sheriff notifying us that the lawyer and the locksmith were on their way to change the locks and that he would have to follow whatever the lawyer told him to do as far as time limits. The Sheriff had been called and told to be there at 1 but notified the lawyer that he would not be able to as there were numerous wrecks and other things he had to take care of due to the inclement weather. Our family was thrown out in the middle of an ice storm in which they closed schools and the interstate. We had nowhere to go and no local family that could help us. Our daughter in the mean time had found a place for her and her daughter to stay and most of their belongings. She made some phone calls and found a place for us to stay for the night that would accept us and our two cats. Having just lost his home we did not feel that we could take away our sons pet cats also. We continued to box up and bag our belongings loading them into the trailer we had and freezing ourselves in the process. Our granddaughter kept coming up to us and asking “What doing Nana?” Or “What doing Papa?” She was so upset and confused! Her life had already been turned upside down when her parents decided to divorce and they moved in with us until they could find a home (which in our college town takes quite a while!) We would like your generous help in being able to raise enough money to redeem our home at this point. Once we have things sorted out we would like to campaign to have the law changed so that every family is allowed 30 days from the date of the final hearing in which to move their family, so that no other family has to deal with this sort of situation again. We had no time in which to gather all of our belongings or find another home to rent. At present we are living in 1 room in a hotel with no income as we lost both of our home based businesses on the day we had to move out. No family should ever have to go through this and we aim to make changes so that it does not happen to other families as it did ours. Potently this change in the law that we would like to make, could help thousands of family’s from this ever happening to again. We have 30 days from the final hearing date to file an appeal which will cost more money. Our lawyers have reassured us regarding the lawsuit over the business that we will win and should at the very least get refunded the money we put forward to purchase the business and run it during our time of running it but until that decision comes down we are on hold. We are asking you to please open your hearts and help us to redeem our home so we can once again get some income coming in and be able to live as a family and not in a hotel room. The money will be used to fight the appeal if we are unable to redeem the house and also to be able to either find another home to rent or buy. Ultimately we will be lobbying our local congressmen and senators to assure no other family is put in this type of position again. We are going to ask that there be a law put in place so that after the final hearing families are allowed 30 days to remove their belongings. They have 30 days to appeal the judge’s decision so it should stand as a law that during that 30 days they are able to live there and get their lives sorted out and figure out what they are going to do. We would also like to have a law passed that inhibits having your home sold for rock bottom price when you have over 30% equity in it. We would like a law made that states such situations the home is placed on the open market and a fair price is realized for the property. This would give the distressed home owner some of their investment back. It is estimated by Realty Trac that this year over 6 million homes will be repossessed and that over 5 million more home owners are 2 or more payments behind on their home loan payments. We appreciate your time and we appreciate anything at all that anyone is able to do. If 140,000 people gave a dollar we would meet our goal. In a world with a population of 7 Billion people we are only asking that 140,000 give us a dollar. We know times are tough for everyone and believe me we feel it at the moment but also if anyone came up and asked us for a dollar I can tell you I would most definitely give it to them. Not long ago our daughter asked me a question which I will end with. Her question was “Mom why is it that you guys have always tried to live by the “Golden Rule” and to do everything in a legal and proper manner and it just seems that you continually have people who do these sorts of things to you” I really didn’t know how to answer that but I can say this. We have always tried to do right, raise our children to be responsible caring, kind individuals who treat others with compassion and am told by anyone they spend any time around what wonderful people they are. I can also say that at this moment I am concerned as to our justice system and what could happen to other families and would like to see that changed. Thank you again for your time and may you have a wonderful blessed day Sincerely Mark, Kaylene and Nathaniel Lockwood