I had purchased a home from a seller on a contract it was a private transaction where we did not use a lawyer (mistake 1) and was done without a title company (mistake 2). I gave the seller $10K (mistake 3) and made a year of timely payments (mistake 4). The next thing I knew a guy showed up at my house saying he owned the house, and wanted me to pay rent to him. He showed me a contract from the same seller who had apparently sold the house again. I didn't know what to do, so I made the new "owner" two payments (mistake 5) which I thought were ownership payments, not rent payments. On top of that there was a bank which had started a foreclosure. Needless to say the transaction I entered into had gone crazy wrong and I needed help. I heard from a realtor friend about James Ziter who apparently is a respected real estate lawyer in Utah. I called him, and I'm lucky I did. First, he was easy to contact. Every time I called, I either spoke with him, or got a fast call back. I had an appointment within one day. He instructed me to immediately stop making payments to anyone, and got between me and the "2nd Owner", and got between me and the original seller. Ziter explained that there was no way this deal was going to work out good for me and because of what he described were other people that had recorded liens on the house, I would never be able to own the house. I stayed in the house without payments for 5 months while Ziter shook my down payment out of the original seller in installments. I almost got all of my money back. All things considered, Ziter helped me escape a really bad deal that had taken all the money I had in the world. Next time I'm calling him BEFORE I try and buy a house. read more