Yurezz Home Center Inventory To Be Seized
mrandolphadvance@gmail.com
Several mobile homes from the Yurezz Home Center location in Vidalia are being seized as investigations into the business continue and lawsuits stack up against the company.
Customers throughout the Southeastern United States sought answers and guidance at the end of June as Yurezz Home Center, which continued from page
has a location at 1725 Mt. Vernon Road in Vidalia, quietly ceased operations at all of their locations across five states – Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, and Mississippi – which left several individuals and families without the homes for which they had previously paid and signed purchase contracts.
Some customers even stated that though they had received their homes, the structures were unlivable, as contractors refused to complete work previously discussed to finish the houses because of not being paid. These customers all shared similar stories of repeatedly reaching out to the dealership, but no calls, emails, or other communications being answered.
Investigators from agencies across the five states began to look into the case, and Yurezz Home Center Owner Richard Altman was ultimately arrested in Baxley on Wednesday, July 8, and booked into the Appling County Jail. He is charged with illegal transmission of monetary funds for offenses that allegedly originated in Livingston Parrish, Louisiana.
Appling County Sheriff Mark Melton said that the business is still under thorough investigation by authoritites. Anyone with information on Yurezz Home Center should call (912) 367-8120.
In addition to these investigations, the business is also facing several lawsuits, including one lawsuit that has caused 169 total inventory homes to be seized through an emergency motion of immediate possession.
First, Yurezz Home Center was sued by 21st Mortgage Corporation, which alleged that the Center’s Owners Richard and Heather Altman moved a mobile home from one of their dealership lots to private property without paying the lender for the home. In the lawsuit, the Corporation argues that the couple should either pay for the home or return it to the Corporation’s ownership. The suit remains in court.
Meanwhile, last week, Northpoint Commercial Finance LLC. filed a verified complaint for a writ of immediate possession, breach of contract, breach of guaranties, conversion, and more. In the filing, Northpoint requested an ex parte emergency motion of immediate possession, which would allow the company to seize several of Yurezz’s inventory homes; a temporary restraining order, which would prevent the Altman couple from altering or visiting the homes; and an interlocutory injunction, which barred Yurezz from selling or purchasing any homes until the matter was solved.
In the filing, Northpoint explained that not only had Yurezz sold the inventory which they had financed through Northpoint without paying off the lien, but that the business also had not paid for the interest, fees, and other expenses for the inventory financed through Northpoint that remained on Yurezz’s dealership lots. Northpoint stated that the total amount of money that Yurezz owed the financers totaled $5,308,785.96 for the sold inventory and $23,668,245.42 for the current inventory.
In addition to this, Northpoint alleged that Yurezz had converted its collatoral and diverted the proceeds of the sold homes to other entities or for other purposes rather than paying the lender.
On July 11, the Georgia Statewide Business Court granted the emergency motion, and prohibited the Altmans or Yurezz Home Center employees from selling, transferring, wasting, moving, relocating, assigning, marketing for sale, damaging, or interfering with any homes financed through Northpoint and making any transfer, sale, disposition, waste, assignment, or encumbrance of their assets aside from ordinary expenses of the business. Yurezz and the Altmans are also required by the court to preserve all evidence showing the sale, transfer, disposition, relocation, or encumbrance of all personal property involved in Northpoint’s lien agreement, and were instructed continued from page
by the court to take immediate steps to preserve all potentially relevant evidence in their custody, possession, or control.
In addition to this, a total of 169 homes throughout the state – including twenty homes from the Vidalia location, forty homes from the Baxley location, eleven homes from the McRae-Helena location, and eleven homes from the Statesboro location – were authorized to be seized by the lender.
The Georgia Statewide Business Court will have its first hearing on the lawsuit at 9:30 a.m. on August 4 at the Nathan Deal Judicial Center in Atlanta. During the hearing, both Northpoint and Yurezz will argue whether the Temporary Restraining Order should be converted to interlocutory injunction, as well as any issues that occurred related to Northpoint’s immediate possession of the inventory.
