Bandit Lyin’ Lawyer Delarue in a Harris County Outlaw Court with Realtor and Scam Artist Christa Burch

Plaintiff Christa Burch (“Burch”) and Defendant Fay Servicing, LLC (“Fay”) (collectively, the “Parties”) hereby file this Joint Notice of Settlement and respectfully show the Court as follows:

The Parties have reached a settlement in principle regarding the claims and causes of action asserted in the above-reference-and-numbered cause.

The Parties fully expect to present dismissal papers to the Court within thirty (30) days.

The Parties respectfully request that the Court remove the above-captioned-and-numbered lawsuit from the Court’s August 1, 2024 Initial Pretrial and Scheduling Conference1 setting and stay any pretrial deadlines, including Fay’s June 24, 2024 deadline to answer or otherwise respond to Burch’s Complaint and the Parties’ July 18, 2024 deadline to file the Joint Discovery/Case-Management Plan and the proposed Joint Scheduling and Docket Control Order.

1 Doc. No. 5.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Helen O. Turner
B. David L. Foster – Attorney-in-Charge
Texas Bar No. 24031555
S.D. Texas Bar No. 35961
dfoster@lockelord.com
LOCKE LORD LLP

FINDINGS OF FACT

1.                  In September of 2019, Stephen Wilkins met Burch at a restaurant over breakfast to promote her services.

2.                  Plaintiff made clear that he wanted to “learn and get into flipping houses.”

3.                  Plaintiff agreed to attend Burch’s seminar “How to make it the Long Haul in Real Estate Investing.”

4.                  Plaintiff attended the seminar put forth by Christina Burch who promoted herself as an expert with over 17 years of experience (at the time) who flipped dozens of homes.

5.                  Birch had put on at least four of these events in the past.

6.                  Plaintiff even went to Burch’s church before entering into an agreement with her.

7.                  Burch was aware that Plaintiff had never done any investing prior to his agreement with Burch.

8.                  Plaintiff and Burch agreed for Plaintiff to pay a “mentoring fee” to be mentored in flipping a home.

9.                  Burch expressed that in their conversations, she “had mentioned that [Burch] had done some mentoring in the past when he said he wanted to get into it.”

10.              Aside from the mentoring agreement, there was a basic agreement to “take a piece of real estate…fix it up, turn around and sell it for profit.”

11.              The agreement was to split the profit after the house was sold.

12.              The reason a mentor agreement even coming into fruition was Plaintiff probing Burch how experienced she was, which Burch responded that she had been flipping houses “a long time.”

13.              Burch told Plaintiff that she had been flipping for “20 years,” and that she was “teaching people the right way to do things…”

14.              Burch found out that Plaintiff had cash saved in reserves.

15.              Burch advised Plaintiff that he could remove his retirement money from his investment account (of which he was making a net gain from every year), put it into a directed IRA with Quest Trust, and then borrow from the trust company holding the directed IRA to pay for the house investment.

16.              Burch admits that the point of her putting on seminars was to find people who do not know what they are doing in real estate – “the whole point is when new people come in, that they don’t know what they’re doing. You are basically helping guide them to success.”

17.              Further, Burch was holding seminars to meet people who could not afford to invest, all to use Burch to help fund the issue – “They — people — everybody has limited amounts of money to deal with. So when they fill up their plate and they can’t do any more and they go, oh, I’ve got this great deal that I can’t do. Christa helped me out. I’m going to call her and see if she wants the deal.”

18.              Burch admits that the seminars were a form of advertising for her business.

19.              Burch admits that Plaintiff and her had a special relationship where she offered him more in terms of her usual services and had an agreement to work together.

20.              Burch admits that the plan working with Plaintiff was to buy a house, fix it and sell it.

21.              The original representation was that the repairs, if any, could be completed and the house on the market by December of 2019, with a possible closing in January of 2020.

22.              Burch and Plaintiff purchased the home at 19226 Pinewood Mist Lane, Humble, TX, 77346 with Plaintiff’s funds.

23.              Burch admits that the agreement was to Plaintiff to provide finances, Burch would bring the deal, and then would split the profits “in the end.”

24.              Burch was supposed to be mentoring and managing and overseeing the deal.

25.              Repairs on the home were estimated at $7,200.00.

26.              There was also a leaseback on the property that Plaintiff and Burch agreed to split but was never given to Plaintiff.

27.              Burch claims that even though the original agreement was to split profits from the home purchased with Plaintiff’s life savings, that Plaintiff “changed the deal.”

28.              Plaintiff and Burch had a falling out, and Burch threatened to end their mentoring agreement with zero refund.

29.              After a falling out and the house not being sold, Plaintiff attempted to mitigate his losses and asked for his money back several times.

30.              Burch claims that Plaintiff, in text messages, gave up the right to the profit and went with the original note on his life savings from the directed IRA to Burch.

31.              Burch has produced a small amount of text messages (and not all of them, even though discovery requests ask for them) in which Plaintiff is begging for a response on what is happening with the property to no response. Burch finally reaches out and say “I will refund your mentor fee and do my best to pay out the note in the next 45 days… I [sic] believe this is more than fair. Let me know your thoughts”. To which Plaintiff responds, “That sounds fair.”

32.              Based on information and belief, Burch is taking the stance that that exchange, which is not a valid contract (bargain for exchange), and has no offer and acceptance, changed the entire agreement to allow Burch to do whatever she wants with the property paid for by Plaintiff’s life savings.

33.              Burch still did not follow through on selling the house or paying off the note in 45 days.

34.              Burch admits that she agreed to sell the house after the alleged severance but did not give him the profit from the sale of the home.

35.              Burch states that even though there was an original agreement to sell, even though, arguendo, she promised to sell the home within 45 days, that “I can do with the asset as I please” because Plaintiff “severed” the agreement.

36.              Instead, Burch leased the home instead of selling it as agreed.

37.              Burch has pocketed the money paid for the lease for two years.

38.              There was no agreement between Plaintiff and Burch to lease the home or receive the rental payments, which Burch admits.

39.              Further, in January of 2020, just weeks after attempting to sell the house allegedly, Burch a $75,000.00 loan creating a lien on the home without Plaintiff’s knowledge or permission. This was termination of the agreement.

40.              Burch claims that this loan for $75,000.00 was taken out to pay $6,000.00 in taxes and back repairs on the home, which she estimated at $7,200.00.

41.              Burch expressed, under oath, that the rest of the loan went to “property preservation” and that she ended up using it “to sustain bills” including bills for expenses not related to the home.

42.              Burch stated that Steve had no notice of the loan against the Property in the agreement and was not entitled to any input on taking out the loan secured with home that he purchased, and she had promised to sell.

43.              Burch was told by the previous owner that the price was too high when it went on the market, allegedly got no traction on selling the home at the listing price, had only one or two showings to sell, and allegedly could not sell the home.

44.              Even without selling the home, Burch still claims that the reason the house didn’t sell was because the price was too low.

45.              Burch has no plans to attempt to sell the property as agreed and intends to keep the property leased.

46.              All of the $75,000.00 loan secured with the Property has been spent.

47.              Instead of Plaintiff getting 3% interest back on the note, and the 50/50 split (with the 3% netted out) on the property, Burch is taking the stance that Plaintiff won’t get the 50/05 split on the sale, and only the note at 3% that he was entitled to anyways.

48.              Burch stated on the record that because the contract was “severed,” that Plaintiff does not get his split with the 3% netted out and only gets the note at 3% in the end.

49.              Plaintiff and Burch even discussed doing multiple deals before things went sour in their relationship. See CBD Page 88, Lines 1-13. Despite Plaintiff’s funds and experience, Burch still showed Plaintiff his “options” in even more deals.

50.              Burch admitted that the role of her as mentor was to depend on her advice.

51.              Burch purchased the home from the original seller to SDC Ventures in September of 2019, then transferred the home from SDC Ventures to C. Burch Enterprises in December of 2019, after she claims that Plaintiff severed their deal.

52.              Burch claims she did this to pay off Plaintiff by getting a long-term loan, only to take a secured loan out on the house instead and not pay the Plaintiff anything. SDC Ventures only member is Burch.

Conclusions of Law

1.                  Stephen Wilkins, Jr. provided sufficient proof at trial to establish that the Christa Burch and SDC were legally obligated to repay the amount withdrawn for seed money for the house flipping of “Property.”

2.                  Stephen Wilkins, Jr. provided sufficient proof at trial to establish that the Christa Burch and SDC were legally obligated to pay the benefit of the bargain of the agreement to purchase, repair and flip the house.

3.      Stephen Wilkins, Jr. provided sufficient proof at trial to establish that Christa Burch’s hand were unclean and is not entitled to equity – specifically she is not entitled to half of any profits and is not entitled to any cost spent on the home, including repairs, taxes, insurance, or any other reimbursement.

4.      Stephen Wilkins, Jr. provided sufficient proof at trial that Defendants failed to pay the amounts due above and instead leased the home for 44 months, and he is entitled to payment equaling the amount of rents that Christa Burch and SDC has received.

5.      Stephen Wilkins, Jr. provided sufficient proof at trial to establish that he is owed the mentoring fee that he paid to Christa Burch and the leaseback paid to Christa Burch.

6  Based upon the credible evidence presented at trial, as a matter of law Stephen Wilkins, Jr. is entitled to judgment against Defendants in the amount of $              , plus attorney fees in the amount of $                   for attorney Shawn Williamon bringing this suit.

7.      Based upon the credible evidence presented, as a matter of law, pursuant to the Texas Finance Code, the applicable judgment interest rate on the judgement is 5% per annum.

8.      Based on the credible evidence, Stephen Wilkins, Jr. is entitled to an equitable lien on the Property and any other property that was purchased, leveraged, or borrowed against with the benefit of the breach of agreement.

Respectfully submitted,

THE BLUM FIRM, P.C.
SHAWN WILLIAMSON
State Bar No. 24106892
Swilliamson@theblumfirm.com
24 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1800A
Houston, Texas 77046
O: 817-286-4820
F: 817-334-0078