Second jury finds fault with controversial foreclosure rescue deals
In 2005, Thomas Cook told 68-year-old Yolanda Rodriguez that the St. Petersburg company he worked for could help save her home from foreclosure.
Instead, Garco Inc. got the deed to the house, and Rodriguez, who was evicted, lost as much as $200,000 in equity. But on Thursday, a Sarasota County jury found that the transaction that cost Rodriguez her home was invalid because Cook, acting as a broker on the deal, did not have a Florida real estate license.
The verdict paves the way for Rodriguez to get back her 2,300-square-foot Englewood pool home. It could also provide legal ammunition for others who have lost their houses to “foreclosure rescue” companies like Garco and its owner, Gideon Rechnitz, whose real estate license was revoked for alleged fraud in 1990.
“A licensed real estate agent would not have been allowed to do anything Thomas Cook did,” says Elizabeth Boyle, a Gulfcoast Legal Services attorney who represented Rodriguez.