Oak Lawn IL Real Estate News

Kathleen Dangman is a resident of Oak Lawn that has been indicted on six counts of felony forgery in two separate cases.  She is being held in Will County jail on $100,000 bail and is seeking a bail reduction tomorrow.

Dangman operated a scam where she attempted to purchase 2 different homes for sale in Mokena directly from owners using fradulent checks and money orders.  One of her victims, Linda Novelli, showed up in court on Tuesday to tell her story.  She feels once Dangman is released she’ll be up to her illegal scheme again.

She has already been arrested once and was let out of jail on bond during the summer.  When she was out she attempted the same scam on Novelli.

Novelli had her home up for sale when she was approached by Dangman.  Dangman gave her a song and dance about a pending divorce and wanted to pay money up front and live in the home while either waiting for financing or getting owner financing (I couldn’t tell from the stories I read).  Novelli moved out of her home with her family and moved to a home they had already set up to rent in Atlanta, Georgia.

Before they left a check issued had a stop payment put on it.  Dangman gave her a story of how it was a mistake and gave Novelli a money order.  On the way to Georgia Novelli got notified that the money order was counterfeit.  Checks and wire transfers started coming through that were all bad.  In the meantime, Dangman was living in the house that was originally for sale for $580,000!

Dangman had pulled a similar scam prior to this and lived in another Mokena home until she was arrested.  Supposedly, Dangman had owned her own home in Mokena that went into foreclosure.  She obviously did not want to leave the area and always told her victims that she wanted to keep her kids in the Lincoln-Way school district.

It seems Novelli’s home had been listed with a real estate company but the listing expired at an asking price of $449,000, reduced from $489,900.  It is a beautiful looking 4 bedroom home built in 2000.  If news quotes were correct, it sounds like Novelli agreed to seller financing at the sales price of $580,000.  Why would a cash buyer pay that much?

I realize Dangman had a “story” and agreed to a higher price if Novelli would finance her at $10,000 up front, another $40,000 after the divorce and $4,000 a month.  Sounds fishy to me and I’d really be afraid to accept something like this without doing a lot of checking.

When we have cash deals we ask for proof of funds.  But those are deals where the buyer puts down earnest money which is held by the listing broker, and brings the rest of the funds to the closing, usually at an attorney’s office for a cash deal.  It didn’t mention whether Novelli used an attorney but I can’t imagine going into such a transaction without one.  Also, if you’re going to finance a buyer wouldn’t you do a credit check?  That should have brought the foreclosure up.

I guess desperate home sellers are easy prey.  Possibly another negative to being a For Sale By Owner, (FSBO).  Remember, Novelli wasn’t Dangman’s only victim, she had done this to someone else before.  She got caught then and I simply can’t fathom that she thought she’d get away with it this time.  Novelli is back in her Mokena home after having lost tens of thousands of dollars in mortgage payments and rental fees, not to mention her $8,000 moving fee!

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