A HEARTBROKEN mother is homeless once again after she was evicted from her new home despite paying a $5,100 deposit.
After being homeless for eight months and living in her car, Nikita Jones had finally found a home for her two daughters in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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The mother was able to rent the two-bedroom, one-bath home after contacting a supposed agent with Luxury Home Service.
Jones worked out a deal with Angel East, in which she paid $5,100 for the first and last month’s rent and a security deposit.
“I had to fill out an application with her. I paid the application fee,” Jones told CBS affiliate WTSP.
“I paid her $5,100 to get in here. That was first, last, and deposit. She said the rate was $1,700 a month, so I had to pay $1,700 three times.
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“I ended up getting the key delivered to my job, and that’s when I proceeded to live here.”
Jones remembered viewing the home and feeling at ease, thinking this was a modest home for her and her daughters.
However, she was quickly served with an eviction notice and uncovered that the home was not under her name.
“It was under somebody else,” Jones added.
“I have just been victimized by her [East]. Now, I’m facing eviction with my two kids.”
The eviction notice was served to Annesse Maxell, a woman Jones did not know.
Jones hired attorney Lynn Henshaw to take a look at her problem.
Henshaw uncovered the troubling issue that the mother-of-two never worked the deal directly with the landlord.
“She didn’t understand why she was getting sued with paperwork,” Henshaw told the outlet.
“We originally thought maybe they had the wrong address because it was so different than what was actually happening because Nikita lives here with her kids.
“There is nobody else here. So, that’s what kind of started it.”
Henshaw learned that the mysterious Annesse Maxwell had eviction notices spread across the Tampa Bay area.
“All for pretty much the same period of time where ‘Annesse Maxwell’ has been a tenant somewhere for the same period of time,” the attorney said.
Several other landlords who had dealt with the unknown Maxwell said the woman never showed up to court for eviction hearings, but the victimized tenants did, WTSP reported.
“It was under somebody else. I have just been victimized by her [East]. Now, I’m facing eviction with my two kids.”
Nikita Jones
Court documents viewed by the outlet showed another tenant paid $8,100 to Angel East to move into a property.
The woman was in the same position as Jones, trying to fight off her eviction after she struck a deal with the phony real estate agent for a $2,700-a-month place.
When the woman called East and asked for her money back, the fake Luxury Home Services representative said her “business partner Annesse Maxwell had it,” court records showed.
That’s when attorney Henshaw uncovered East’s sinister scheme.
“She’s not targeting people that would have the sophistication to go to a property management company,” Henshaw said.
“She’s targeting people who are saying, ‘I can’t get a place, I don’t qualify for a place, I am desperate for a place.’
“Those are the very people that she’s targeted. This is an organized mess.”
Meanwhile, Jones was left in shambles as she packed her belongings up as she was forced to move out of the home.
“I’m tired now. I got to do all of this still, I got to move,” an emotional Jones said.
“I got to find my kids someplace else to stay. You took me for everything that I got.
“I’m strong enough that I’m going to make sure my kids got a place to stay.
“But it sucks that I have to go through this because I seeked [sic] help from somebody who took advantage of me and my children.”
The Department of Business and Professional Regulations has opened an inquiry into East and several other companies she claims she worked for, including Luxury Home Listing, United Property Finders, and Real Property Management.
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