I will never forget that horrible day, early February 2009. It was an early afternoon and we had just received a rare return telephone call from the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) investigator assigned to our case. He was the second investigator assigned; the first one never contacting us, had subsequently been terminated by TREC.
The investigator and I were discussing the sellers' Realtors and, specifically the listing agent as I was standing at our living room window looking out across the yard at the natural gas pad behind our home.
The investigator asked me if I thought that the two seller's agents were equally involved in the non-disclosure issues on our property. I told the investigator at that time that I felt the one Realtor was the main culprit in the non-disclosure and efforts to illegally pull our house out of the flood zone. I went on to tell him that the sellers' listing agent was young, and probably the least experienced of all the Realtors.
The TREC investigator disagreed with me stating that the listing agent was "not that young," "was quite experienced having been an agent for some time"; and that she was not just an agent but actually "a real estate broker at this time."
Upon conclusion of our telephone conversation I went to the TREC website to look up the listing agent's educational portfolio and see if I could determine her years of experience. That's when the horror hit, and I ended up literally sick to my stomach. I immediately phoned the investigator back after confirming what he had stated earlier to me; and in addition shared some information that began to paint a very ugly picture of fraud beyond that which we had originally thought.
I told the investigator that when I looked up the agent's information she had her maiden name listed hyphenated, as many professional women do these days; and that her maiden name was a very well known name by many in these parts. The family name is linked to hundreds of acres of land in the immediate area; and that included about 200 acres on which our entire association was developed. What's more, the Realtor's family name was posted on the natural gas well installed behind us; the family alone having collectively approximately 388.463 acres leased in the pool.
The Realtor's "Uncle Anson" lived right behind us, owning most of the acreage which drained water runoff onto our lot. Uncle Anson had sold the acreage where the well sits now to our neighbor just a month after we closed escrow. Our neighbor spent the next couple of months battling to keep landsmen off of his property and a natural gas well from being installed.
During the sale of his 11 acres to our northern neighbor, Uncle Anson made an interesting comment while walking the property line one afternoon. The details can be viewed here. Uncle Anson's conversation with our neighbor.
At her deposition. the sellers' Realtor (a.k.a. Uncle Anson's niece); stated that she was unfamiliar with the area, and specifically with our property (a.k.a. Grandpa Jim's old cattle ranch). Yet, I will never forget the nervous look on her face and the fidgeting as I looked across the table at her during my deposition.
Her attorney asked me why I felt that his clients knew about our property and why they should be held accountable for non-disclosure. That's when I bellowed out the whole scenario of Uncle Anson, the neighbor's conversation, the gas well with grandpa's name branded on it, and the fact her family once owned all this land; their precious relic of a historical barn not far behind our property.
And although I was not given opportunity to share additional information that I was aware of; we had information through county records that showed that she had a relationship with her beloved Uncle Anson. He apparently (being a contractor) built a home for she and her groom. Records also show that the Realtor was the listing agent selling Uncle Anson's home which sets on a hill right behind us. He listed the property shortly after he unloaded the 11 acres platted separately to our neighbor, which ended up being a massive drill pad site.
County records and documents obtained from the Texas Railroad Commission website affirm that the family is clearly on lease and benefiting from royalties received from grandpa's natural gas well located behind our property. I should add that this natural gas pad site is located in Flood Zone A; and was installed without any formal flood studies done prior to installation. It wasn't until after we contacted the County Flood Plain Administrator and made some noise that an engineering firm came out to the area and did a belated study.
The belated engineering study done by Dunaway Associates leaves us with more questions than answers. Such as:
- How is it that a drill bad is allowed to be installed in Flood Hazard Zone A without a flood study?
- There are no Base Flood Elevations in the area; so how did they determine elevations in their study?
Here are the maps included in the Dunway Engineering report in original color format.
Map 1
Map 2
Overlay Map 3
