We brought a home thru Garden Homes (Dave Garden). It went ok but during the sales process Dave approached my husband stating he was seeking an individual to help with misc. jobs, collection of rent, overseeing various renovating projects and so forth. A gopher/silent partner so to speak.
My husband did throw in his lot with David and in very short order my husband had placed David on all his credit cards as authorized user. In a matter of weeks Dave maxed out every card he had and additionally requested he take out a Menards credit card which was promptly maxed our..
He sold my husband old dilipadated HUD properties on land contract/lease to buy and kept the properties in his own name(Dave Garden/Billy McGlaughlin) so they could not be traced in court to my husband due to our pending divorce. . He placed 7 properties utilities in my husbands name and they were always delinquent and since the utility companies often bundled more than one account into a single one, I experienced utility shut offs in my own home for lack of his and my husband's payment their other properties.
During the course of my husband's relationship with Dave he became accquainted with our family members and my young daughter. He made empty promises to her and took her to empty properties to use in exchange for sex and drugs and money. He used, my daughter tells me, 2815 Harlan and a property in Beech Grove on Oakmont. My daughter has struggled with drug use for some years and in addition is psychiatrically fragile. In addition to alcohol, drugs and money he promised to assist her with getting a realty license and helping her advance her education so that he could provide her gainful employment and thus conceal the relationship from his wife.
As my husband became more and more involved with Dave he became very secetive about their activities. We began having financial difficulties and our marriage started to unravel. He was buying properties from Dave via land contract/rent to buy and so on. He tried to keep this property ownership from me as by now the divorce was pending but I stumbled upon documentation recording the transactions but not registered with the courts . Dave went so far as to prep him as to how to get a home equity loan on our personal home without my knowledge. Fortunately the paperwork did jibe and Hunting bank called me to ask if I was aware of the request for the loan as the application listed him as single.
This story goes on and on, is sordid, filled with duplicity, underhanded buying and selling practices and the preying on of an extremely unstable and vulnerable young woman and a old borderline senile, gullible man. 72 years old.
David Garden used his broker license to gain personal information as to our credit rating and other information that would enable deceptive practices that reeked of insult to his reality/broker licensure code of ethics and code of professionalism.
My aging and ill husband (heart bypass surgery, out of control diabetes, high blood pressure, retinopathy, hearing loss, visual impairment slowing of thought processes etc.)is now broke, homeless, broken in spirit and a divorce pending leaving him without a wife to assist with his day-to-day medical needs and aging process. I no longer have contact with Dave or my husband and I am not aware of their current business arrangements but I am sure David dumped him like a bad habit after he had wrung from him all he had to offer.
As for my daughter, she still bears the humilitation of her actions and at having been so badly used. She did confess to his wife but Dave offered her a sum of money to recant her confession and still attempts to contact her on occasion.
Stay away from Garden Homes because if there is money to be made nothing is exempt or sacred. Read all home buying documents as carefully as you can and in no way offer personal details not relevant to the transaction or that could be corrupted to Garden Homes advantage.