ATLANTA,None — A woman who rented a downtown Atlanta loft says she received a foreclosure notice on the door a month later.
Marlena Martin said every notice said her landlord, Walter Woodyard, had not been paying his mortgage.
"He was at least three months behind when they sent this notice," Martin explained, pointing to a desk with numerous notices laid out.
Martin said she also started getting letters from the building's homeowner's association attorneys saying they would sue her because the fees for her loft were months past due. She said she had only lived at the Century Lofts for a month when the first notice arrived.
Martin said she paid her landlord for the first and last month in rent when she moved in, and then started paying the HOA. She kept records of her cashed checks which total $3,800.
"If the bank is telling us not to pay him; the HOA is telling us 'no, you have to pay us or we are going to take legal action against you and we got him saying you got to pay me, what do you do?" Martin told Channel 2's Craig Lucie.
Martin decided to work with the bank, but then, Woodyard took her to court to evict her and won.
"I had all of these documents and the judge never even looked at them," said Martin.
She appealed the ruling and is now waiting on another court date. At first, the presiding judge dismissed her appeal, but then admitted to making a mistake in her case after she filed a complaint with the Judicial Qualifications Commission.
When Lucie went to Walter Woodyard's listed midtown Atlant address, the home appeared to be vacant. Neighbors told Lucie he had moved out of state. Lucie also found at least nine civil suits filed against Woodyard.
When Lucie reached Woodyard on the phone, he said Marlena Martin is slandering him and created most of the lawsuits that are online.
But some documents show The Maryland Real Estate Commission also filed a complaint against Woodyard stating that he inaccurately described a property to entice buyers.
When Lucie questioned him about the complaints and other civil suits, Woodyard said he did pay a fine in Maryland and hung up the phone.
WSBTV
