NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. — Felicia Seamon’s home for the holidays is stuck in limbo after the property she rents was foreclosed on.
However, she only learned about the foreclosure after paying rent for months and resigning her lease in early October.
“It’s been a whirlwind of emotions trying to keep it together. The holidays are coming around, and we are finding ourselves in magistrate court learning if we are going to have to vacate the property,” Seamon said.
Seamon has never missed a payment in years of renting her Newton County home. She and her husband picked the property because of its nice yard, green space, and distance from the city.
“It meant a lot to find a place that was comfortable,” Seamon said.
The family also picked the home from Landa Properties because it owns dozens of properties throughout the Atlanta metro area.
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“That gave us the impression that they were reputable and that we definitely wouldn’t fall into this situation,” Seamon said.
However, this year, the first warning sign came when she got a notice that the home had unpaid taxes. Seamon and her husband reached out and heard from Newton County that the taxes had been paid, and with that assurance, resigned a lease in early October.
“Then, literally, after we did that, that’s when we got all the pink papers and learned about the foreclosure,” Seamon said.
According to property records, Landa had 14 Newton County homes foreclosed on June 4, months before they signed Felicia and her husband for another lease.
“I can say this is pretty definitely civil fraud. If Landa is leasing out a property it no longer owns, that is definitely, civil fraud,” Real estate Attorney Rick Alembik said.
He says these types of moves from landlords are not unusual, especially for some out-of-state groups using properties as pure investments.
“For whatever reason, they will stop paying that mortgage and keep collecting lease payments from their tenants for sometimes months,” Alembik said.
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Alembik also says it is easy for tenants to be caught by surprise. State law only requires notice of foreclosure to be sent by certified mail once and for it to be advertised in a local paper, which is often not widely read.
“So here is where these tenants started to fall through the cracks,” Alembik said.
When that happens, the tenants can pay the price, left to figure out where to go next and try to recoup thousands spent on rent and safety deposits.
“To know that we are going to have to take a lump sum of money to be able to rectify a situation we didn’t cause,” Seamon said.
According to Newton County records, US Bank now owns the house. On Monday, a judge dismissed a case to evict Seamon from the home because the attorney representing the bank did not have a deed to the home. However, the case can be refiled.
“Once again, we are still in limbo about what is going on,” Seamon.
Attorneys tell Channel 2 Action News that the family could try to negotiate with US Bank to honor the lease, try to buy the home or negotiate a timeline to leave the property.
Any effort to get money from Landa would likely take a lawsuit. Channel 2 Action News reached out to the company for a comment but did not receive a response.
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