@ChickaDee221 didn't know if you had read this or not. If not, I am sure you will want to read it since your interested in the Wagner family "nickle and dime" business practices.
Matriarch of Wagner family accused in Pike County massacre spent decades building wealth
Several hopeful buyers have attempted to purchase this 5-acre parcel over the years from Fredericka Wagner. Not one has been successful. Pike County Auditor's Office.
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More than 100 land contracts
Those who rented or attempted to purchase land from Fredericka Wagner described her as driven by one thing: money.
Over decades, she and her late husband, George "Bob" Wagner, entered into at least 132 land installment contracts in an apparent attempt to sell off smaller portions of their land. The contracts allowed the Wagners to retain deeds on the land as buyers attempted to pay off their principal and interest.
Some contracts included interest rates of 10 percent or higher, including at least three above 13 percent.
If buyers made all their payments, they’d eventually become owners of the land.
It rarely played out that way.
Twelve contracts were satisfied.
Nearly 80 percent were ultimately terminated without a corresponding deed transfer, indicating the land returned to Wagner possession.
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1 property, 3 failed attempts to purchase
In an examination of the Wagner contracts, the terminations and civil disputes that ended up in court, The Enquirer found three separate parties attempted to buy the same 5-acre parcel owned by the Wagners.
Not one of the buyers was successful.
The first potential buyer improved the land, boosting its value, according to the buyer’s son.
The contract called for the buyer to make improvements to the property.
Charlie Swain signed the contract for $29,000 on June 27, 1997. But he was unable to keep up with the $250 payments due to health issues and the loss of his job.
So Cecil Swain, son of Charlie Swain, tried to help by offering to make his father's payments.
Fredericka Wagner declined the offers, Cecil Swain said. She told him she could make more money by reselling the land since his father had developed it, he added.
Owen denied Cecil Swain made such an offer.
"She didn't care, as long as she got the money," Cecil Swain said.
Fredericka Wagner said by phone on Nov. 25 that the issue of land contracts has "nothing to do with (the criminal allegations). It’s irrelevant.”
She added, “If you don’t make your payments, you can’t stay there.”
A Pike County judge ordered Charlie Swain to forfeit the land, returning it to the Wagners.
Charlie Swain may not have been able to obtain it even if the Wagners hadn’t sued. His original contract included a provision calling for a “final balloon payment” of $27,351.99. The balloon payment was due about five years into the contract.
Less than four months after Charlie Swain lost in court, the Wagners found a new buyer for the 5-acre parcel.
A woman entered into a land installment contract agreement in May 2001. This time, the Wagners charged $40,000, or 37.9 percent more than they charged Charlie Swain.
And the monthly payments increased by $100, to $350.
Six months later, in November 2001, the contract was terminated. No cause was given. The termination document said the Wagners would keep all payments made and “all parties agree that there shall be no monetary reward, or reimbursement to the (woman) for any improvements they may have made to the land.”
About three years later, yet another land contract began for the parcel, this one in October 2004, according to the corresponding lawsuit the Wagners would eventually file.
This time, a mother of two young children and her boyfriend were the hopeful buyers. The price for the property increased again, to $48,000, according to a receipt shared by Owen with The Enquirer. Monthly payments jumped to $400.
A contemporary memo prepared by Fredericka Wagner and shared with The Enquirer said the buyers missed payments.
Fredericka Wagner and her husband sued the mother, Misty Ison, and her boyfriend in 2008. A judge terminated the land contract and ordered the family off the land.
“We done all the work to the land and everything, and finally got it fixed and everything, then all of a sudden losing it like we did,” Ison said from a Piketon motel, where she’s been staying recently after becoming homeless last March. “It was – it was tough.”
Today, that 5-acre parcel is valued at $23,860, according to the Auditor’s Office. It’s owned by White Pines Realty LLC, a business formed by Wagner and her husband.
New hopeful buyers signed yet another land contract for the parcel in 2014. The contract calls for $143,300 to be paid over approximately 30 years.
Michael Gibbons-Camp, a staff attorney with Southeastern Ohio Legal Services, which provides legal assistance to those who can’t afford it, said some land contracts are predatory.
"The seller is just squeezing whatever money they can get out of a purchaser, knowing that they're going to get the property back and they can do it again," he said.
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The Wagners ‘may have taken advantage of the situation’
Those were far from the only deals with the Wagners that soured.
In another case, Fredericka Wagner and her husband were accused in court of attempting to exploit an illiterate man to gain control of a small bit of land he'd been making payments on for about a decade.
The Wagners sued the man and his family in 2006, claiming he defaulted on a contract for 5 acres in the neighboring Newton Township.
But in response, and with the help of attorney Stacy M. Brooks, the man denied the claims and alleged the Wagners were bilking him. Brooks, who told The Enquirer the man was a veteran with limited resources, represented him pro bono through Southeastern Ohio Legal Services.
The man had entered into an oral agreement with the Wagners to pay $15,000 and no interest for the land near his property in 1996, according to Brooks’ filing in the case.
That same year, according to the filing, the Wagners attempted to have him sign a land contract he couldn’t read and that included "a balloon payment at the end." The man never signed the contract.
The land contract called for about $9,000 in payments over about five years, with a “final balloon payment” of $14,764.55, according to property records.
The man kept up his $155 monthly payments, Brooks’ filing states, which indicates he paid a total of approximately $18,000 prior to the suit. But in the 2006 suit, the Wagners alleged he still owed about $14,000 at 12 percent interest per year, plus a $201 late fee.
Brooks, on behalf of the man, wrote: "the land installment contract is unconscionable since the price greatly exceeds the value of the property."
Owen said Fredericka Wagner and her husband sued after the man asked for a deed to the land, claiming he’d completed his payments.
“Fredericka said, ‘Well, you’re forgetting the interest,’ ” Owen said. “He said, ‘What do you mean? I thought I just had to pay you this.’ She said, 'It’s in the contract.' ”
Brooks told The Enquirer she remembered the man as "not sophisticated in dealing with the Wagners, and our theory was they may have taken advantage of the situation ..."
The case was dismissed after an out-of-court settlement. Terms of the settlement were not listed in public documents. Brooks could not recall the terms and said the record of the agreement may be confidential.
Owen said Fredericka Wagner waived what the man owed when she learned he couldn’t read in court. When asked if she could have determined the man’s literacy without a lawsuit, Owen said Fredericka Wagner “didn’t really believe initially that he couldn’t read or write.”
A deed was filed a week after the case was dismissed, transferring the land into the man’s name.
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Kim Parks has lived for about a decade near the Flying W farm.
“They (the Wagners) act like they’re church going people, but they’re not,” Parks said. “It’s all a cover-up.”
A tenant, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of the Wagners, said Fredericka Wagner has increased her rent 25 percent since the massacre of the Rhodens.
“She don’t care what her (tenants) do, long as she gets the money,” Parks said of the matriarch.