Lamas v. Gonzalez
| Docket Number | 08-21-00095-CV |
| Decision Date | 30 August 2022 |
| Parties | CARLOS LAMAS, Appellant, v. LUIS RAUL SANDOVAL GONZALEZ, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the 34th Judicial District Court of El Paso County Texas (TC# 2020DCV4095)
Before Rodriguez, C.J., Palafox, and Alley, JJ.
This interlocutory appeal arises from the trial court's grant of a temporary injunction in favor of Appellee Luis Raul Sandoval Gonzalez (Sandoval). In his original petition Sandoval alleged that he was buying a house from Appellant Carlos Lamas through a contract for deed. Sandoval claimed that he made regular mortgage payments under the contract but Lamas later refused to accept payments and attempted to evict Sandoval from the house through several forcible entry and detainer actions. Sandoval sought a temporary injunction that would ensure his ability to continue making payments and enjoy the property during the pendency of the suit, which the trial court granted. Lamas challenges that ruling. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court's order and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings.
In his original petition, Sandoval alleged that in June 2015 he entered a contract for deed with Lamas to purchase a house in El Paso, Texas. Sandoval claimed that after making a $20,000 down payment and monthly mortgage payments under the contract for several years, Lamas filed multiple actions for forcible entry and detainer in a justice court to remove Sandoval and his tenants from the house. His petition also claims that Lamas tried to prevent him from making mortgage payments, thereby "engineering a false default [on the contract] so that [Lamas] can take the property back-confiscating the $20,000.00 down payment without right or justification."
Sandoval sued for breach of contract, requested a declaratory judgment, and also sought a temporary injunction preventing Lamas from filing further forcible entry and detainer actions against Sandoval and any tenants residing in the house. In part, he relied on Tex.Prop.Code Ann. § 5.066(a) that restricts a seller's remedies if a buyer has made more than 48 payments under a contract for deed.
As for injunctive relief, he asked the trial court to: (1) order Lamas to provide login information to the mortgage servicer's online portal so that he (Sandoval) could continue making mortgage payments, or alternatively, that Lamas accept mortgage payments and forward them to the mortgage servicer; (2) enjoin Lamas from interfering with any lease agreements between Sandoval and any third-party tenants; (3) enjoin Lamas from filing any additional forcible entry and detainer proceedings; (4) enjoin Lamas from interfering with the homeowners insurance policy and to name Sandoval as a beneficiary of the policy; and (5) order Lamas to provide Sandoval with a general warranty deed upon completion of Sandoval's obligations under the contract for deed. After Lamas answered the suit, the trial court heard Sandoval's request for a temporary injunction in which the parties presented the evidence recounted below.
Sandoval testified that he first met Lamas through a Craigslist advertisement for the sale of a house in El Paso, Texas. Lamas's advertisement sought a buyer who could make an initial down payment on the house and continue to make monthly payments on a pre-existing mortgage until the mortgage was paid off, at which point title to the house would pass from Lamas to the buyer.
In June 2015, Sandoval and Lamas signed a document titled "Contrato de Transpaso," (written in Spanish) which appears to be a contract for deed to the house. Lamas drafted the document. Under its terms, Sandoval was to make an initial $20,000 down payment, to be followed by monthly payments of $549.89 on Lamas's pre-existing mortgage with Bank of America until the mortgage was paid in full. To allow for those payments, Lamas provided Sandoval with login information to the bank's online portal and payment system. That same day, Sandoval and Lamas also signed an "Assignment of Real Estate Contract and Sale Agreement," which provided that Lamas would transfer the house's title and his interest to Sandoval based on the terms of a copy of the contract for deed that had been translated into English.
Sandoval paid an initial $2,000 portion of the $20,000 down payment, and moved into the house, claiming it as his homestead. A handwritten receipt that appears to be attached to the Contrato de Transpaso also states "Balance of $18,000 for a total of $20,000." Sandoval then began to make monthly payments on the mortgage. Sandoval asserted that from June 2015 to September 2020, a period of around 62 months, he did not miss any monthly mortgage payments. At some point, Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. (SPS) became the mortgage servicer.
Sandoval moved to Mexico. While he was gone, he rented the house to tenants, but he moved back into the house about two to three months before the injunction hearing. While acknowledging that he worked in Mexico, he claimed to still live in the house "intermittently." When Sandoval had the house rented, he claimed that Lamas ran off two renters and threatened to evict another.
In October 2020, Lamas changed the password on the bank's login portal without explanation, preventing Sandoval from making further payments on the mortgage. Sandoval then sent Lamas a $2,280.00 personal check via certified mail for the October 2020 through January 2021 mortgage payments. Sandoval also sent a separate check through his attorney for the February 2021 payment. Prior to the temporary injunction hearing, Lamas had filed three forcible entry and detainer actions in a justice court to evict Sandoval.
The record also reflects some dispute over the authenticity of Lamas's signature on some documents. As for that issue, Sandoval presented testimony from Samuel Madrid who notarized the contract documents. While Madrid was not present when the Spanish version of the contract for deed was signed, his signature is present on both the "Assignment of Real Estate Contract" and the translated version of the contract for deed. Madrid recalled notarizing the documents and stated that if his signature was present on the documents, it meant that he followed his standard practice of verifying a person's identification while he was physically present with the person.
Madrid's office assistant translated the handwritten contract for deed from Spanish to English. And Madrid, who is fluent in Spanish, stated that the original contract for deed provided "that the compensation of $18,000 was given and a total of $20,000 was paid."
Lamas related a different version of events. He testified that he was a co-owner of the house with Sandra Lamas Marquez, to whom he was married at the time the contract for deed was signed. But he later admitted that the couple was divorced almost two years before the contract for deed was executed. And he did not know whether Marquez was awarded any interest in the house in the divorce.
Lamas acknowledged that he signed the Spanish version of the contract for deed and wrote some of its language by hand. Lamas further agreed that he and Sandoval signed both the "Assignment of Real Estate Contract and Sale Agreement" and the "Real Estate Purchase and Sale Agreement." Even so, he claimed that his signatures on Sandoval's copies of the documents were forged, and he reported this fact to the El Paso Police Department.[2] Nonetheless, Lamas acknowledged that he signed a different copy of the documents which were filed of record in one of the justice court proceedings. Lamas also claimed that he never met Samuel Madrid, the notary whose name and stamp were present on these documents, and that Madrid never notarized the documents in his presence.
Lamas contended that although Sandoval paid the first $2,000 of the $20,000 down payment, he never paid the remaining $18,000 down payment. Lamas acknowledged that Sandoval regularly paid the $549.59 monthly mortgage payments through an online portal from June 2015 through June 2019, but he learned that payments for July, August, and September 2019 were missing. He acknowledged, however, that Sandoval soon made good on those payments.
At some point, Sandoval informed Lamas that he (Sandoval) had not been living at the house because he could not enter the United States legally, and that he had leased the house to another individual who was supposed to be making the payments. This upset Lamas because he claimed that there was an oral agreement that Sandoval would not rent the property to third parties.
Lamas presented a document from SPS reflecting the mortgage payment history for the house. This document shows that there were late payment charges for the months of July 2019, and September through December of the same year. Lamas also presented a document from SPS that stated it was possible for SPS to accept mortgage payments from a third party. Lamas claimed he made the mortgage payments for September 2020 through December 2020 and February 2021 out of his personal account. Lamas sent Sandoval a letter informing him that he had breached the terms of the contract.
Lamas conceded that he had not complied with the requirements under the Texas Property Code for a contract for deed, including: (1) his obligation to record the contract for deed; (2) provide an annual accounting; (3) provide insurance naming Sandoval as a beneficiary; or (4) comply with the proper procedure for eviction.
Finally Lamas complained about the condition of the house and the...
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