Feeling like maybe you shouldn’t have splurged on that shirt when you’ve already got a bunch like it already in your closet is one thing, but deciding you’d rather not own a home you purchased is an entirely other category of buyer’s remorse. A Florida woman is blaming her winning bid on a home that comes with a $400,000 debt on it on diet pills, saying they caused her to become confused.
The woman says in court documents filed by her attorney this week that she had been confused after taking “judgement-altering” weight-loss medication containing phentermine, reports the Orlando Sentinel, and made a mistake when she bid about $100,000 on a home during a public auction on Feb. 19.
The money she bid would only go toward paying off a debt owned to the homeowner association of $15,929 for overdue fines and fees, but there’s also a $400,000 lien on the house from Chase Mortgage.
The documents say the medication she started taking shortly before the process impaired her and “caused her to make mistakes and alter her judgment.”
She claims that after submitting the winning bid for the foreclosed home through the Orange County court auction process, she immediately realized she’d messed up and hired an attorney to help her back out of the purchase.
But filings in the case question whether the phentermine could’ve caused her to make such a big mistake, saying that side effects of the medication include dizziness and difficulty sleeping, but not impairment of judgement.
The homeowner’s association — which wants the sale to close so it can recoup that fee money owed — responded to the woman’s filing by noting that “lack of knowledge, however, or lack of due diligence is not a mistake,” reports ABC News.
“Phentermine is an appetite suppressant,” the homeowner’s association states. “‘Altering judgment’ is not listed as an adverse reaction or a side effect to taking Phentermine under the Physicians’ Desk Reference and Web MD.”
Realauction.com runs the online auctions for the county’s courts, and warns bidders that they’re on their own when it comes to researching the homes’ value, title defects, liens, mortgages or any other debt.
Plus, as the company’s CEO Lloyd McClendon points out to ABC News, the woman placed $120,000 in her deposit escrow account on Nov. 2, 2014 so she could bid on any house. She also entered her account and routing numbers for the electronic check, something he says “something very difficult to do by someone affected by prescription medication.”
“The diet pill seems like a convenient excuse for not doing their research before bidding,” McClendon said.
The woman’s lawyer says that though she was responsible for research, she “had not discovered the mortgage before the sale.” He adds that she never would’ve bid on foreclosure sale if she hadn’t been confused by the medication.
Homebuyer claims diet pills caused auction mistake [Orlando Sentinel]
Florida Woman Claims Diet Pills Led to Home Purchase She Regrets [ABC News]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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