Rhode Island real estate agent sued over alleged foreclosure scheme

A local real estate agent is facing a lawsuit filed by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha for allegedly cheating homeowners with limited English skills out of their homes in a so-called “foreclosure rescue scheme.”

The lawsuit, filed in Providence County Superior Court, alleges that Seyboth and his colleagues violated the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).

According to the complaint, Seyboth’s colleagues approached the Delvas, a Haitian couple who had lived in their Providence home for nearly 30 years. The Delvas, who had limited proficiency in English, defaulted on their mortgage payments in May 2023 and owed Wells Fargo about $61,000. The market value of the house was approximately $450,000. The excess money from the foreclosure sale, which would have been approximately $385,000, would have been returned to the Delvas.

The Delvas met with an attorney associated with the defendants in July 2023, and they signed documents that they believed were a refinancing agreement. However, the documents effectively transferred the title of their home to Preferred Property Solutions. The defendants allegedly failed to provide interpretation or translation services even if the Delvas requested them.

Attorney General Neronha is seeking civil penalties and interim measures, including annulling the sale and returning the house to the Delvas. He said the suspects “deceived and abused a Rhode Island family in danger of losing their home, preying on their financial desperation and limited knowledge of the English language.”

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) helped a What’sUpNewp journalist report on this story.