ComplaintsforBig State Home Buyer, LLC

• Initial Complaint

  06/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  In 2019 I lost my husband to a tragic gunshot to the stomach tragedy lost my home lost my husband and my mom just got diagnosed with Stage 5 Renal Failure. I also had got diagnosed with severe PTSD, Anxiety, and severe Depression. I moved in with my mom and became her 24hr caregiver. My mom passed in June of 2021 and left me everything. My family abdon me I was left in grief of my husband my mom having the PTSD I could not leave the house and got behind on my mortgage pymts the land was already paid off. I got frantic and my decision making is not good and decided to go with big state. At first they were so nice they new about my mental issues and were willing to help me and purchase my home and land. Telling me there would be no cost to me. THey would take all the stress of my shoulders. Justin never would communicate with me i did all initiating. Told me one closing date after another. They finally give me a number of 86k I thought that was low but I accepted it to to only come back again with another amended contract with 60k, again didn't want to accept it but I felt pressured and took it. I finally got a probate court date but i researched and seen they already had put my land in their name before probate and anything was in my name no response from Justin when I brought that to his attention. Probate was over and finally they had a closing date but when the 60k offer came in i got in text from Justin the they were offering the 60k with no out of pocket cost to me. When the mobile notary came out which i did not know cost me 150$ every time i read the contract and at the end they were only going to pay me 23K for a property that will sell for 180k. When I called because I was refusing to sign they tell me I sign or I would get less than that and they would turn it into legal and I would be paying for that too. I am hurt disgusted by these people ethics. I have been thru so much not even wanting to sell what my mom left me. This in my opinion this was negligent misinterpretation and i am not happy!

  

  Business response

  07/21/2023

  I have already replied to this complaint and posted the reply twice to this system. I will post it one more time here. Please see ******** ****** for confirmation. Let me know if there is something new here I need to do. I dont see something new in the chain of information. 

  I have worked with my Closing Operations team and my Sales team to unpack what’s happened here. 
  
  First let me say that I am sorry Ms. *************** is having so many life-changing stress events happening at once. I know that is a lot to manage and throwing a move in on top of all of that must be very difficult. 
  
  Next, I would like to address the communication piece. The customer has been very specific that she doesn’t like telephone calls and prefers to communicate by text message. Justin from our sales team attempted to match his communication style with her request there. And frankly that’s where he was most successful in getting her to engage with him. I don’t generally think text message is the best way to communicate through the sales process and our preference is always to explain things by phone or in person, but in this instance the customer would only engage with Just by text message and I am afraid some things may have come across colder than intended in explaining our sales process. The most we were able to obtain for Ms. *************** was in fact $60,000 for the home and that’s exactly what the customer was given, it’s just that she owes $37,000 in debt against the house to the mortgage company and to the tax authorities. Those liens have to be paid first and foremost, and I am including our contract and addendum here that make that really clear. It’s also something we would have explained to the customer – we cannot know what someone owes on their home when we begin our process, so it’s not possible for us, or anyone else for that matter, to make an offer on top of debts and liens. The seller must satisfy their existing obligations on the home first to clear title. Whatever is left after those debts are satisfied is there for the customer to pocket – just like any real estate transaction. 
  
  I understand where the customer may have not known herself what was owed on the house, given she inherited it from her parents. But that brings up another issue – we have recently been approached by the customer’s sister stating that the will Ms. ************** presented, which disinherited her sister, may not have been valid. We rely on the validity of the documents presented to us and do not wish to engage in a family dispute over the validity of the will, so we advise Ms. ************** that she may need to consult with her attorney to settle this matter. 
  
  Furthermore, even though we have closed and funded (Ms. *************** also signed her closing documents with a notary), the customer is refusing to leave the house. We went above and beyond typical protocol and agreed to allow the customer ‘a few days’ to get out without insisting on her signing a lease-back agreement and that’s turned out to be a mistake because now our buyer is going to be forced to seek an eviction to remove her from the house. The buyer came to our office today seeking advice and we stated that we would try to work with the customer to resolve this peacefully and hope to avoid the court process, but we haven’t had success getting her to communicate with us, as she doesn’t like talking on the phone. 
  
  It sounds to me like the customer is unhappy with her decision to make this sale and that she has some undisclosed legal issues that need her attention to resolve her sister’s claim to the home. It doesn’t make sense to me that we should have closed at all on this home given the state of things and the best thing I can offer now is to reverse the transaction and to allow Ms. *************** to go find her way to a resolution that is both legally correct and befitting what she thinks is fair given the circumstances. We don’t want to make anyone sell their house when they don’t want to, and in this case it looks like it’s not entirely her house to sell. We definitely do not want to have to evict her from the home. And given there is absolutely nothing I can do about the $37,000 she owes to the lender and the county for her taxes, I don’t see any other resolution here other than to agree to allow her to keep the home and resolve her issues with her family on their terms. 
  
  I am willing to facilitate the unwinding of this sale and to allow the customer to solve her issues elsewhere if that’s what she wants. There is no other resolution at our disposal unless she wants to accept the terms as outlined in our contract, accept the closing proceeds and move out of the home. If she wishes to complete the sale under the agreed terms and move out of the home peacefully tomorrow, we can accommodate facilitating the sale to its conclusion. If she is unable to do that or continues to feel unhappy with her decisions to sell this way, I suggest we reverse things and allow this family to work through their issues and find another buyer when things are resolved. We will need her to first return the $3,000 advance our Company made to her during the transaction, pay us back the $4,000 we paid to her mortgage company to stop the foreclosure and pay for the legal expenses we incurred to settle the estate – as that’s been our core focus for her these last 3 months. But so long as all of that is repaid to us, we are happy to let her out of the transaction if that’s her wish. 
  
  Please let me know which way you decide to go. 
  
  Best regards, 
  
  Brian *****
  President, Off Market LLC

• Initial Complaint

  11/30/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We wish we had read the reviews here before signing up with this company. We hoped for the best, but it’s starting to sound familiar to the other review of the lady waiting 3 months to close and signing multiple amendments because we are doing the same thing with Big State. They knew from the start that it was imperative that we close within 30 days. We are getting close to 2 months dealing with Big State and no end in sight. We first signed up in October with a closing date of the 31st. Their contract mentions a 14 day option period for them to inspect the house. We were fully transparent and let Big State put a lock box at the house against our better judgment. Their employee, Justin *****, never contacted us with any problems that their “contractors” found in that option period and never made any changes to their original offer for our house until our October 31st closing date. At that time he told me that due to repairs they would be coming down $32,500 off the contract price. I tried to negotiate by a few thousand and he refused. He told us he was approved by Big State to move forward with the low price and we could close the next week. Since October 31st the closing has been put off by him week to week. They got us to sign an amendment for the lower price and basically sent us to a fake closing at Fidelity Title since their buyer who is a ****** ******** Southwest agent never planned to show up to closing. We closed November 22nd and were still not funded on the following Monday. We began asking questions that morning, but everyone at Big State was dodging our calls. When something goes wrong their company policy is to stop talking to their customer. By that evening, they admitted that the ****** ******** agent/investor backed out of the deal. They offered no personal explanation to us. They have breached the contract with us multiple times and are avoiding resolving this matter. We now have no idea what their intentions are and are left in limbo financially.

  

  Business response

  12/13/2022

  I appreciate the feedback here and I am so grateful for the chance to respond. Let me first say that I completely understand that our customers seek out our expertise in delivering an outcome for them, and there is no one on our team who puts anything above "fulfill their commitments to the customer" when they come in and seek our help. We work hard to contain all of the uncertainty that exists in any real estate sale and most of the time - 94.2% of the time in fact - we are able to get all the way to closing without the customer experiencing the hiccups that we absorb along the way to make a 'easy sale' possible. In the other 5.8% there are a thousand reasons that our process fails, and we spend more time and effort whittling that number down than any person could know. Sometimes it fails because the title problems are not fixable (rare, given our expertise, but there are times when 'other owners or heirs' surface), sometimes there is an issue with the property itself (environmental issues, deed restrictions, hoa that will not allow tenant occupied homes etc), and sometimes the market has huge fluctuations and people freeze. This year we have seen some of all of these things. What I can say is this for sure -- failure is never intentional and it's rarely without warning that we communicate with the parties along the way. Our company spends upwards of $10k per transaction in marketing, staffing, legal and overhead -- and that money is lost if we do not close. So there is not any incentive to conceal the nature of these issues and there would not be any reason to have a fake buyer or a fake closing. We have nothing to gain by intentionally deceiving anyone and setting up false hope. If this buyer backed out the day before closing then we all lost, and when someone waits for months to close it's only because the title problems are the complex. What I would like to do is offer this seller my sincere apology for their experience and offer them the time and attention to get them to a closing with another bonfide purchaser. I cannot make problems disappear or factor our risk 100% of the time, but I can do everything we can to solve issues all the way and give better attention to the customers that arent certain why our process is so complex. I would be so glad to spend time with this seller helping from here. Let me know if I can do that. 

  Brian ***** 

  Customer response

  12/26/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
  
  [Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]
  
  Regards,
  
  
    We have left messages and tried to speak to Brian *****, Seth and others at Big State Home Buyers, but with no luck because no one returns our phone calls. We were ghosted by them since the first buyer walked away and the title company informed us and not Big State. The called back after a week telling us they found a second buyer to replace them. We need the earnest money put up by the first buyer that backed out last minute because they cost us extra money at closing and we already got next to no profit on our house. We finally closed with thousands less than promised and that was not part of the deal or the amendment they wanted us to sign. We signed up with Big State with a contract to close October 31st because it was imperative for us to do so in our situation. We need per diem for all days past that because we ended up closing well into December and no offer of the earnest money from the first buyer that essentially set the low offer for our house and then walked away from the deal Big State made with him. Please resolve this and refund the money we lost by closing much later than contracted.There is also no coordination from seller to buyer from this company. We cannot even get contact info to transfer mail keys to the new owner.
  

  

  Business response

  01/03/2023

  Good evening thank you for your comments. I just reviewed the digital records for your transaction that closed in early December and I’m sorry that you feel we didn’t communicate adequately with you through the process. Upon my review, I show over 110 documented interactions between you and various people inside our organization during the course of your transaction. Everything is documented back to our first phone call, which is recorded as well, and the many dozens of notes I see outline the nature of this transaction, the fact that the price was uncertain based on the condition (specifically the foundation) and there appear to be many times where we expressed clearly what was required to get to the finish line, and what caused the delays.
  The most significant issue was that your title was not clear until the middle of November. That is when we completed the last heirhsip affidavits to resolve your family’s estate, and until that time no one anywhere could close on this home. The contract clearly states that the closing date is contingent upon having clear, marketable title. And i do appreciate how complex that process can be, so I can’t blame you for being frustrated by the title company’s requirements, but the intestacy laws in the state of Texas require a lot of collaborative work between our team and a home seller to get it clear to close. I’m very glad that we were able to help you settle your estate issues free of charge so that you didn’t have to go spend thousands of dollars on a probate attorney, but as we stated early on your home was “out of county” for local title companies like Fidelity and the processing time is longer as smaller county records are slower to reflect title updates.  But aside from the title work, I can also see through the many notes that we worked with you and provided cash advances throughout the process despite struggling many times to have your cooperation in a way that enabled success. For example, when we needed access to the house, you removed the lockbox. When we were ready to close mid November, you hadn’t removed your belongings from the house so we couldn’t complete the sale until we resolved that with you.  And while we would hear from you when you needed a cash advance, we couldn’t reach you consistently when we were trying to clear these requirements for closing. I don’t want to take away any of your feelings of frustration, but there are many reasons why things didn’t work on the original timetable and I can’t honestly accept all that responsibility. And regarding responses — Seth and Brian’s email addresses are publicly available,  it I have not seen any attempted communication from you (and I am Brian). The title co and our internal team surface all reputation concerns to me personally at first notice and I can’t see any record where you tried to reach me. I can’t speak for seth though - but we will investigate that tomorrow too.  
  At the end of the day I would love for you to walk away feeling well-served. I’m not certain it’s fair to state that our team didn’t meet our commitments to you, but if you have a specific request that you think is fair that aids your perspective and increased your level of satisfaction I’m certainly willing to hear exactly what that might be. I would also be more than glad to share all of the records that we from this relationship with the Better Business Bureau if you feel their review could help us identify how we could have served you better throughout your journey. At the end of the day, I know that you all were in a very stressful situation, and I am glad that we were able to close your transaction, resolve your estate issues and accommodate your cash requests along the way while also helping you prevent the foreclosure. I can share with you that our company closed this file at a net loss, so for what it’s worth, I hope you can feel some relief knowing that you did settle your debt and receive the most money possible. I know that our team is proud to have served you and I’m deeply sorry that you feel like we have done you an injustice. I’d be glad to come through everything with you and if there’s no service while also remain open to ways we could have served you better. If you have a very specific ask that you’re looking for, please let me know what that is and we will certainly always consider your request.

  Customer response

  01/23/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
  
  [Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]

  I reviewed the response to our complaint, but do not feel that anyone is even familiar with the entire transaction from start to finish. The property in Needville was never really an inherited property anyway. So no the additional title work did not benefit the estate because the title work was already done when we purchased the home in April of 2022 with the intention of moving there. The additional time and title work was unnecessary for us because the home was already purchased by us and put in our name.  We could have easily signed off on selling the property without spending additional time trying to track down people who were not related that knew family members that have died 20 plus years ago. We showed in an early email from Justin ***** that an inspection of the property was done on October 8th before we even signed the contract.  He came up with the supposed foundation problems on October 31st which was outlined in the contract as our closing date.  We had told Justin ***** from the start that we needed to close in 30 days and we were already talking to another investor that wanted to close in 60 days and therefore we had decided not to work with them.  He seemed confused as to why the other investor would need 60 days to close. We had only decided to sell the Needville home because we could no longer move there because the lender was not trying to work with us on getting the notes caught up as we intended to do. We urgently needed to get out of that loan to avoid foreclosure, but we were never in foreclosure. Unfortunately, I feel that Big State used that information to their advantage to lower the offer to a point we could not afford. The lockbox may have been removed briefly because we did not see how we could move forward with the low offer. Now we have not even realized a half of the profit we agreed to.

  I have spoken to people at Big State numerous times, but never when we needed urgent information.  When we were sent to closing in November and the buyer never showed up, no one from Big State would contact me back for a week.  The title company broke the news to me that the buyer had backed out of the deal. We felt like we were scammed and had no where to turn. When we closed in December with the second buyer, we closed for even less money because it took two more weeks.  We were never even offered the earnest money from that first buyer that backed out.  When were were not able to close on October 31st or as the contract says within 7 days, we have been faced with even more charges and the small profit we would have made from the house has evaporated. The cash advance was $1,500 and was only after so many changes were made to the closing dates.  That advance was paid back in full at the closing in December.  Your website says that your company does do cash advances, but we were never offered one and only asked at the point that the closing was not happening.

  
  Regards,
  
  
   

  
  

  

  Business response

  01/27/2023

  Unfortunately the title company did not find your title work to be sufficient to transfer title and insure the transaction. You may not have found value in additional work and locating missing heirs, but in reality the legal standard required by the title insurance company is not dependent on your opinion of title. The underwriters at Fidelity National Financial (Fidelity National Title) did not agree with your previous work as legally valid for an insurable transaction. I realize you had a lender lend you money before selling to us, but that was a private lender. No institutional lender would have ever completed another transaction without the title curative work, making the property relatively worthless to anyone but you. We spent a great deal of time working through that for you, free of charge, and while you may not understand why that is valuable, it does not diminish the value or cost of the service simply because you disagree with it. You would not have been able to sell your house to another person outside your immediate family, not then and not ever, without the services we provided you in title. 

  I am familiar with your file and I am sorry that you are not happy with the service we provided. I am equally frustrated by the huge effort that we provided and your unwillingness to see its difficulty or value. I dont know how to help you from here, though I am sorry we seem to be stuck here. the BBB is welcome to step in and try and influence the mindset here on either end if they are able and willing to. I dont otherwise know how to be of service to you sir. 

  Wishing you the very best in your future endeavors. 

  Brian *****

  - Owner 

  Customer response

  02/02/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
  
  [Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]
  
  Regards,
  
  
    We are sick to death of the bantering back and forth with Brian. We do not have your email and we have called big State numerous times and asked to talk to you bist get rebuffed by your receptionist who is clearly screening calls. I don’t care about the opinion of the title company that you all chose to work on your behalf. Fidelity has been no help to us on this process because they work entirely for you. They have a fiduciary duty to you and me that they have breached. They refuse to give us needed information and have lied to us and they will be appropriately reported and dealt with as a separate matter.

  Please forward the $2,000 in earnest money you collected from your first buyer that we went to the fake closing with in November 22, 2022. We waited an additional several weeks for you to find another buyer and it cost us additional money that was lost by us at the closing table. James Toppins already texted me over 3 weeks ago that it would be overnighted to me the next day as our matter was never resolved and we never got the closure your buyer received. They have been given the opportunity to enjoy the house they bought and move on. On the other hand, we have been left to suffer and argue back and forth with you. Brian *****, we have read your other snappy and hateful responses to other sellers that have valid complaints about your company on the BBB.At least you resolved some of their complaints in a timely manner so maybe we too can start a new chapter after selling my wife’s childhood home that we had planned to move to in Needville. We wouldn’t have needed more title work because we purchased it with the intent to move there. 
  

  You all are now using this BBB complaint as a reason not to finalize this deal. James Toppins said because of the BBB complaint he had to pass this file to Seth Castillo and Seth used the excuse of this BBB complaint and haven’t heard from him in weeks when he said it would be resolved. This matter with your company has been a constant stress since October. I have since suffered a heart attack and I know this situation has played a big part. We have tried in good faith to resolve this using the BBB for help. 
  

  Chris and Amber **********

  
  

  

  Business response

  02/03/2023

  You had a contract with our company. One contract that existed through the whole transaction. The buyer's contract was with our company, it was not a contract with you. So you are not entitled to any earnest money from the first buyer, if any EM was even collected, because their contract was with our company. Not with you. You did not have a contract with any party that terminated. 

  I am not saying that we wont give you money because you are complaining, but dont for a moment think that you are entitled to it. Understand that you're just complaining to try and get something like someone who eats a meal at a restaurant and sends the food back after eating 90% of it, saying you didnt like how it was cooked. It's a core problem in America of people having unreasonable expectations and thinking they're entitled to something because of the adage 'customer is always right.' What you dont realize is that mentality is a) not true and b) actually forces companies to make all kinds of changes to their pricing and policies to accommodate unreasonable requests. You think you're getting a little something extra because youre complaining, and sure, we can throw money at you to go away, but realize that you're actually the problem in American consumerism. You might not like the snippy comments, but pardon me -- you are what's wrong with our country. 

• Initial Complaint

  09/24/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Well I started a signed contract with ******** **** ****** back in June 23,2022 I have signed 5 or 6 Amendments every two weeks. I have had three different people I was talkiñg to and I guess they don't talk to one another. Had one blow up on me because I blew up on him. Why well when you tell someone your going to call them back by the end of the day and you do not and they call for five days and get voice mails promise etc. Ok I already missed my daughters delivery on her first child my son has terminal brain cancer we agreed on a price everything was down. I got a call a week before 9/15/22 and was told the 15th was my closing date and I would receive a call two days before closing date of 9/15/22 ok I got a text on 9/15/22 it said I will push for a closing date and time. I was like what. So again I signed another amendment thirty days and was told a buyer backed on and now they wanna list my home with realtor and that is not what my legal binding contract states. I just want to get all of this done and move on with my life and my son's. It seems all the promises are not promises at all. I don't even know what to think anymore. I did have a lawyer review the documents and it states big state home buyers are the buyers and we both had 21 days to back out back on June 2022 and we didn't. And the departed spouse even got a call and they asked him if he agreed on the price I was offering him. He said yes in a text as he sent it to me. It seemed like a great company but three and a half months and I am still getting the run around. I just want to close on this contract as both parties agreed up on and move on. Very up set and irritated.

  Customer response

  09/29/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  This letter is to inform you that Big State Home Buyer, LLC has carried out to my satisfaction the resolution it proposed for my complaint, filed on 9/24/2022 and assigned ID *********
  
  Regards,

  Complaint has been resolved between both parties Bug State Home Buyers and *** ****** ****. Thanks please remove all complaints associated with both of us. Thanks *** ****** ****

  
  

• Initial Complaint

  09/16/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Big State Home Buyers filed * ******** ********** ****** on my property and refused to remove it after not bring one offer to the table over 45 days later. Note: The ******** ********** is expired and they have not provided one offer but are refusing to respond and remove the lien which will result in a lawsuit mid next week. There has not been any reasonable attempts made by this company to move forward with an offer however they are continuing to cloud title.

  Customer response

  09/17/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  This letter is to inform you that Big State Home Buyer, LLC has carried out to my satisfaction the resolution it proposed for my complaint, filed on 9/16/2022 and assigned ID ********.
  
  Regards,
  
  

• Initial Complaint

  02/24/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I sold my house to Big State Home Buyers on August 31, 2021. The address of the house was ***** ******* **** *** Spring, TX 77373. We did a 30-day leaseback to give us more time to move out of the house. We paid a $1,250 deposit and $1,000 for the 30 days. We moved out after 23 days. The Big State Home Buyer agent, Doug *******, stated that they would send us a total of $1,460 for the return of the deposit and the balance of days unused. I have text messages from their agent stating that Big State was going to return the owed funds. After 3-4 weeks of written promises of payment but no funds being sent to me their agent stopped taking my calls and text messages. I have called their office on at least 2 occasions and their employees told me both times that they would look into it and send us the money but they have not sent the money. I am requesting that they pay me the balance that they owe and have promised to pay. I have attached copies of the text messages as proof that they promised to pay me. I have also checked my bank statements since September 2021 and verified that no monies has been received from them.

  

  Business response

  03/14/2022

  I am sorry I must have missed the first email.  I am sorry to hear that this is still unresolved. Our company Big State Home Buyers did not actually purchase this persons home, nor did we lease it back or hold his deposit. This home was sold to a hedge fund ******* Residential, and this was all managed by their leasing department. I’ve been told numerous times that the salesperson on my team has explained this to the customer, and as you will see in the attached emails, I was assured that their check was to be cut in November. Unfortunately I have no control over this company’s refund process and the sales person in their organization no longer works there. The attached emails are between myself and an executive there at *******. Would you like me to find a phone number for this customer to call? I imagine thee would have been some contact information In the temporary lease documents, but I can follow up with them to find out. I think we’d need to check to see why this wasn’t resolved as promised already, but I think we should contact this buyer to determine if the check was ever sent out and where to. Open to suggestion! 
  - Brian ***** 

  Customer response

  04/05/2022

  
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I have contacted the leaseback company and they are processing my request.  Doug never told me that it was two separate entities that were buying and doing the leaseback.  He used vague terms like "investors" and "we".  When I called their office, if Big State Home Buyers' employees had told me months ago to contact the other company I would never have filed a complaint.  In addition to Doug, the office workers I spoke to never said anything. They acted like they were the ones that would handle this issue, and never contacted me back.  In talking to the leaseback company Doug did not tell them that I was out of the house until October 6.  I told Doug on September 21 that the house was turned over to the company, and have documentation to that effect.  When the leaseback company checked their records they showed that I was in the house until October 6.  Doug also never gave them my forwarding information, so they had nowhere to send the check.
  
  
  
   
  

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩