Past Due

At this point, I can't tell you which days things happened because everything began to run together in a blur of shock, anger, and devastation. Dad and I spent almost every day for the next two weeks in the car chasing down accounts and trying to pull together some small portion of a "new normal" life for him.

We went to the post office to take his mail off of hold, yet again. We tried explaining a little of what we needed and why, the lady there in the office says oh yeah, that lady is in here ALL the time. Every bill you could imagine was past due and his dumpster was set to be picked up for non-pay that very week. Cell phone, cable, electricity, dumpster, you name it... past due.

We also went to the Social Security office to make sure that his disability could not be "messed with". We grabbed a number and sat in the lobby waiting to be called. While dad sat, I stepped outside to call the County Tax office to ask about Dad's property taxes and their status - at this point we kinda had a feeling, but they confirmed. His property taxes were not just past due, but way past due. No tax payments were made 2007, 2008, 2009 then for reasons really unknown she paid 2010 and 2011 and then nothing else after that. Dad owed a total of 10 years back taxes on the house. Almost $5,000 for this small trailer house because of all the taxes and penalties. Dad knew every year he wrote a check for the taxes, and said the last one he wrote was for like $1800. He remembered it. Of course later that night and still going through paperwork, we found the altered tax statement she falsified even calculating tax rates per school district, county rates, the water district and the community college. She also added on the bottom part where it tells you what the penalties are if you pay them late like in Apr, May or June. She came up with some numbers there. The statement for 2017 was for the amount of $1306.62 when in reality the taxes were close to somewhere around $250 a year for the house because again... Dad didn't own the land so those taxes were paid by the landowner. So this was just for the house. There's even handwriting on the statement for the amount Dad paid and the check number and date that he wrote it,like you would when keeping good records, but on another falsified financial document.

Dad texted her or called her I don't remember and asked her what she did with the check he wrote. Her response was "I tore the check up and went and got cash out". So the same question that you are asking now we asked hundreds of times... where's the money?

The next day we drove to Levelland to go to the property tax office to set up some sort of arrangement and we also stopped at his insurance company so we could get her taken off of his insurance policy. Of course in the same fashion his insurance policy had lapsed due to nonpayment. They had been without insurance for over 45 days. He never even considered whether or not he had insurance because there was a card in the glove box that looked like it would confirm a policy. Little did he know that the policy hadn't been paid, especially since they had just traveled to Cloudcroft, NM the week before. We started a new policy and left the office.

Dad got back in the car and I guess it hit him finally. Trying to discuss where to get the money to fix all this, he began to cry. He did have some money available to him, but he said "I was going to leave that for y'all". It's a heartbreaking thing to sit and watch your dad cry and there really wasn't anything I could do to help him.

Dad was able to pull himself back together and we went to the county tax office to see if there was anything we could do. Payment arrangements were set up, but the payment was high. It was going to be a stretch on Dad's budget because he is on a fixed income. But, what do you do to fix her mess and keep him out of any trouble that could have been right around the corner?

As a daughter, it's infuriating to watch.

Later that week we had an appointment set up with the land owner to go and talk to him for ourselves. Documents in hand we showed up for our appointment. I showed him the letter with the stupid blue goose and he verifies that the letter is not from his office nor is it his signature. He calls to his secretary (not named Karen McBee) and says at one point "wasn't this lady paid up for like $8000". He tells us that she was constantly behind on her rent payments, and numerous returned NSF checks. In 2003, there was even an eviction filed with the court to remove them from the land but she quickly came in there and paid the past due balance to stop the eviction.

What?!?

While Dad spoke with the gentleman about possibly trying to buy his land back the secretary asked if I would like a print out of all the payments made. Of course I wanted the print out. Unfortunately, the print out only went 20 years back so 1998 was as far as we could go. So the land was foreclosed on before 1998. Which also means, it wasn't long after they moved in that she lost it. The secretary had never seen her in person, just checks (Dad's checks forged by her), money orders and cash left in their drop box. She had never spoken to her on the phone even once that she could recall.

One of the documents we had brought with us was a deed that Dad had kept in a lock box since January of 2001. By this time Dad was sitting with me in the receptionist office waiting on 20 years of documents to print. We showed the very official looking deed to the receptionist. Immediately, she pointed out that the name of the land owner's company was wrong, The "official" property description was wrong. That the two signatures representing the County Clerk and Deputy were forged and that the landowner's signature was no where on the document.

Funny thing about that was.... it was notarized. How does something get notarized with no signatures? A notary's job is to witness a signature! Later we would ask her about this and she said "I guess I used (name of notary's) stamp". Translation: I stole it and used it.

Looking through the 20 years of transactions was gut wrenching and at one time she was paying lump sums of $1,000 and $2,000 and was ahead by $8000.00. Later in 2019, she told us eventually that it was money that she stole from her employer in an effort to buy the land back. However, the landowner said that he would have never sold it back due to the amount of past due payments, and NSF checks. And before we left the office that day, Dad had to pay a past due balance to get his account current on rent.

This piece of land - 10 acres. In the 20 years alone of renting, the total amount came to $39,551.57, of course we know it was more than that because there were additional records that had aged out of the system. And now Dad had to enter into a contract with the man again to purchase the land. Another sum paid for the next 10 years. If I were to tell you the final amount paid on this land after the original purchase, rent and now purchasing again, your jaw would drop. But this is Dad's home.

Still have questions? We do too.

This is where the story ends right?

Can't be anymore deception right?

She can't get away with it right?

You guessed it.... wrong.

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