Oakwood Acceptance Corporation Ripoff Bait and Switch Housing Purchase Greensboro North Carolina

In late 1997 my soon to be husband and I were looking to purchase a home of our own. Not having many assets and being young in years- we decided to purchase a lower priced home, i.e. a trailor.

We visited a lot in Greenville NC- and were warmly greeted by the salesman. My husband clearly told the gentleman EXACTLY how much of a monthly payment we could afford.

He showed us a brand new single wide home- and the price was affordable.

The salesman asked if we could stand in front of the home and hold a SOLD sign so that he could take a picture of us for the bullentin board.

We filled out paper work and left that afternoon- pleased that we were going to have a nice place of our own- that would not be to expensive in the long run.
The next day we returned to finish signing the forms and the salesman informed us that unfortunately we had been denied credit to purchase the particular home that we had looked at the day before.

We were stunned- and very upset. We had informed our landlord at the time that we were moving- so we had surrendered our rental home.

I was in tears after being so excited the day before - I couldn't believe what he was telling us. My husband asked if there was anything that we could do.
OF COURSE there was... he had the perfect USED home that he could show us, and it was in our price range.

We went with him to see the mobile home- someone was living in it and they wanted to trade it in for a new one. All of their furniture was still in the house and it was difficult to really check out the condition of the home.

After we returned to the sales office, my husband told him that we would take it- we needed a place to live and we thought the home that we had seen was in good shape.
How wrong we were...

After much trouble of getting the home delivered to our rental lot, the team who was to install the underpinning did a terrible job- half of the pieces weren't even attached to the home as they should have been.
Upon entering the home (which was now devoid of all furniture) I stepped forward into the living room- my foot sank down into the carpet. There was a huge hole in the floor that had been covered up by the carpet! I recalled that when we had looked at the home before - there was a large padded foot stool sitting in the very same spot- Sneaky!

Amazed that the floor had a gaping hole in it - we proceeded to inspect the rest of the house. Outlets were missing covers, some were hanging out of the wall. The paneling in the hallway was warped and coming off the wall. The two smaller bedrooms had no door, and there was a huge hole in the wall in one that had been covered by a poster on our previous visit. The more we looked around the home, the more distressed we became.
On to the master bathroom- originally the home was equipped with a garden tub in this room- it had been removed- quite shoddily and replaced with a glassed in shower. The floor around it was very soft and when you opened the door- the entire frame of the shower moved around. We looked around for the water heater and found a strange looking piece of wood screwed into the floor under a large free standing cabinet.
We went outside and peeked under the house- the water heater was strapped under the house with metal tie downs.
The insulation was falling out everywhere - and if someone walked down the hall near the master bathroom- you could see pieces of rotten flooring sprinkling down onto the ground.
WHAT HAD WE BOUGHT?!!?

Having no other recourse- and already having signed paperwork stating that we would purchase the house- we were sunk!
We paid our monthly payments which for some reason were raised from the originally stated amount. We paid on the house for about 2 years - and fell behind. At this point we really didn't care because the home was a piece of crap!
The house was reposessed, and stayed on the rental lot for a year. My husband and I think it was because they knew that if they tried to move it- that it would fall apart.
We received legal papers stating that they were unable to sell the home because of extensive damage- that WE had caused while inhabiting it!

Oakwood has placed a lien against my husband for almost $11,000 and no bank or finance company will touch us.
We are trying with no luck to buy a home.
It is very disheartening to know that a company can knowingly do this to a customer and prevail through the legal system.

J m
Grifton, North Carolina
U.S.A.

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