Watsonville LLC www.sttammanyland.comLot 16 Rollin' Hills Estates, Bush La. 70431859 Phosphor Ave., Metairie La. 7 Lot 16 Rollin' Hills Estates Bush La. (Watsonville LLC) Incomplete Disclosure of Wetlands and Deposit Kept Wrongly Bush Louisiana

Watsonville LLC Land Sale of 9.92 acres in Bush Louisiana (www.sttammanyland.com  is the website).  Also listed on Craigslist for 99,000.  Land for sale since 2007.  Land has not been cleared in a long time (inaccessible).  Survey boundaries and terrain undeterminable.

According to neighbors, I am one of many potential buyers of this land.  I agreed to purchase the land for 39k for approximately 10 acres, which (based on the website, that stated it was high land with a hill inside of it) was fair for 10 useable acres.  I was planning on subdividing it into 3 lots, as St. Tammany Parish would allow.  We are retired, and I am disabled, and all seemed well at that point.  The sellers wrote the agreement in full, and I signed it (PLEASE DON'T DO what I did - Mr. Watson told me if I didn't want it, he'd not force me to get it, and I believed him, since he is the COO of a prestigious Museum in New Orleans).  Their website was up and running for the 5 days I was in line to close through Delta Title in Slidell, and so was their posting on Craigslist - they had not been penalized in any way during this time.

Anyway (you should know what is coming), I learned more about this land in these days following the purchase agreement (was visiting there every day).  I met additional neighbors that I had not met, before the agreement was signed, that had lots of information about the land, and it's neighbors.  AGAIN, I SHOULD HAVE NOT SIGNED A DEAL WRITTEN BY THE SELLERS ONLY, ESPECIALLY WITHOUT ANY DISCLOSURE EVER GIVEN ON WETLANDS, ETC, but I was trusting that if I was having issues, Mr. Watson would understand.  He knew I was retired, on a fixed income, and seemed fair with me when I spoke to him on the phone.

Well, one of the neighbors ended up having to negotiate wetlands permits, because most of his land turned out to be wetlands (expensive, and a big hassle).  I learned that this lot is one of the lowest elevation lots in the area, and tends to drain the neighboring properties that are higher.  I learned that there may not be 3 useable lots on this property, because of the low areas that cannot be seen on the survey.  I learned a lot about this property, that made it a bigger project than a retired disabled man could handle, and I trusted that they would understand when I decided by the end of this week that this was not the right property for me.  It does have potential, but was not the ideal, ready to clear land that the website (www.sttammanyland.com) portrayed.  I am not saying anything was amiss, because I don't really know, but it has been for sale for 5 years, and I discovered it was not for me, even at this price.

 It was in their legal rights to hold our feet to the fire, and make us surrender the contract deposit they wrote.  It was legal, because Delta Title in Slidell strictly enforced it.  But, since I did everything in the world, to try and make it work, and spent 3 weeks of my time and gas money doing all of the homework on it (the website information was about all the sellers gave me to start with), we (and most people we have discussed it with - Attorneys, Appraisers, Real Estate Agents, Title folks, etc.) said it was not ethical ("dirty dealings") for them to take 2,500.00 from our family, considering it cost them absolutely nothing (the land was for sale to others for the full 5 days we were waiting to close).

 Anyway, the ripoff here is somewhat subjective, because we believed the rosy scenario of the website and signed to buy this land.  They do deserve credit for allowing us not to purchase it, because of it not being "right" for us.  But they could have been ethical/fair by not taking all we had put up on it.  They did need to spend some money on it so people can actually see what they are buying, but this was not the right way for them to raise those funds.  In that sense, they abused our good faith with them.