Change of Plans

We were planning on going up to Salt Lake this weekend, but things have suddenly appeared, and we need to stay here in Cedar City.

My Mother and Father-in-law have been having problems with the place they live. They live in a trailer park here in Cedar, and thought they were under contract to purchase their home. For this reason, they have been making large payments to pay it off quickly. Last summer they completely replaced the roof, and there are other general improvements they have made. About a month ago, the woman who owned the park brought a new mortgage contract for them to sign. It didn't account for all the extra payments they made and raised the monthly payments. They (not familiar with legal jargon) brought the contract to me and my sister-in-law (who is a mortgage broker) to read. We asked them where their original contract was. Apparently, they had never received a copy, and when we asked the owner for one, it was an entirely different one then the one my in-laws thought they had signed. Turns out that the owner claims they have been renting the whole time.

So. . . after lots of "negotiation" where the owner called all of us all sorts of names, and spitefully used my in-laws, they gave her a thirty day notice that they were leaving. She told them they only had until the first to get out. This gives us less then a week.

She refuses to refund all the extra money they paid, and also refuses to refund the money they spent on the roof (which, as they were renters they shouldn't have been responsible.) There is no real legal recourse because my in-laws didn't get receipts for the extra payments or keep any records of anything. She obviously doctored the "original" contract, and there is no way to prove it, except to say that both Amber and I saw it before it was signed. . . but that is just he said/she said.

Needless to say, with an extra room, we volunteered to have them come to our house until they found something they could afford. As they had not expected to move, they need to save up first and last month rent in order to get into anything. My father-in-law is looking around for a better job, and is hoping to go to St. George and into a retirement community.

So Scott and I are going to be spending this weekend clearing out the back room (I put my bookcases, and the boxes I wasn't ready to unpack yet there) and moving my in-laws.

On top of this stressful situation, my dear mother-in-law was in a car accident last Friday, and is in terrible pain. She isn't lifting boxes, and under my Dad's orders, is icing her body every hour. However, just from the repetitive motion of packing the boxes, she was in a great deal of pain last night. Scott tried to tell her to stop, but I understand her situation. With my Father-in-law working, she really is the only one who can do the packing. I would be doing the same thing in her place. Hopefully we can help her, and she won't aggravate her condition too much. I still cannot lift boxes, but I can do repetitive packing without too much trouble.

Our ultrasound will have to wait. . . hopefully we can do it on Scott's next weekend off.