Mike Bond spent Tuesday moving his possessions from the house he thought he was buying into a storage facility in Cloquet.
Bond says he made monthly payments on the house since May 2008, then found out through an eviction notice he had been paying someone he now calls a con artist.
"I'm pretty much homeless," he said. "We just lost $30,000. ... I have over $15,000 in labor and material in this property and now I just have to walk away from it."
Bond says the problems first surfaced in November 2008, when he got notice his home had gone into foreclosure, despite his $1,200 monthly payments. He said he was making cash payments to a private party who had an ad posted on Craigslist, selling a house through a contract-for-deed arrangement.
"It was a quick, easy deal," Bond said.
ADVERTIsem*nT
Bond says the man told him he would straighten out the foreclosure issue with his business partner, a Duluth attorney, so Bond didn't give it much more thought.
That was until he learned the house was sold to LaSalle Bank in a sheriff's auction Jan. 6.
That's also when Bond found out the man he was dealing with wasn't the person he claimed to be. He never owned the home and wasn't a business partner with the attorney he mentioned. He had taken possession of the house from someone who was about to be foreclosed on and, instead of clearing up the mortgage, he sold it on Craigslist.
The contract looked official but was essentially meaningless.
"I'm ready to snap," Bond said.
It turns out the man Bond thought he was buying the house from was civilly committed in 1999 as mentally ill and dangerous in Carlton County. The attorney he called his business partner was actually the attorney appointed to represent him through that process.
Police say Bond's dealing with the man can be characterized only as a bad business deal that must be handled through civil court, not criminal.
They say it's painful and costly evidence of why people must be careful and check out who they choose to do business with.
ADVERTIsem*nT
"My wife told me in the beginning, 'I don't trust this guy,' " Bond said. "And I didn't listen to her."
