The house at 441 Audubon St. New Orleans, Louisiana, that was part of a contentious divorce between Tim Wilson Sr. and his former wife, Frieda. (Google street view photo)
Frieda Wilson, Tim D. Wilson’s one-time wife, filed for divorce from Tim Sr. in July 2011. The divorce had been described as being contentious. It was contentious enough that Frieda, along with her petition for divorce, also filed a request for a “TRO” — a temporary restraining order. She requested that it be issued immediately and, quoting from her petition, “… without bond, according to law, prohibiting and enjoining Defendant, Timothy D. Wilson, his agents or assigns, from transferring, moving, disposing of, alienating, or otherwise encumbering any of the assets of the community of acquets and gains existing between Petitioner and Defendant, and that in due course preliminary arid permanent injunctions issue to the same effect. The term, acquets, in civil law, means self-acquired property.
So Frieda, in addition to trying to protect herself, also was trying to protect property from being removed or disposed of or somehow hidden from her.
Frieda was successful in obtaining a divorce from Tim Sr., which was finalized on October 24, 2012. The County Court of Waller County, Texas entered a Final Decree of Divorce that provided, among other things, that Frieda be permitted an “exclusive right of occupancy” with respect to the property until January 1, 2013. The property being referred to is 441 Audubon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Concurrent with that, a couple entered into an agreement — a contract — to buy the house from Tim Sr., who was the legal owner, “on or before January 3, 2013.” That’s an awfully quick turnaround from Frieda’s “exclusive right of occupancy” of the property until January 1, 2013.
In the course of this attempted sale, the couple buying the property discovered that Tim Sr. was the debtor in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy pending in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Nice, Tim Sr. Nice going.
The couple also discovered that Frieda had an “exclusive right of occupancy” with respect to the Property until January 1, 2013. This “exclusive right of occupancy” prevented the couple from accessing the property for purposes of obtaining an appraisal. Legally, they had to hold off until January 2, 2013 to move forward with that appraisal. As a result, the couple and Tim Sr. entered into a 15-day extension of their purchase agreement, extending the closing date from January 3, 2013 to January 18, 2013.
But there was more to come. While preparing documents to get ready for the closing on January 18, the couple’s title attorney discovered that a $385,565.21 lien had been placed on it by the Internal Revenue Service — the IRS — because of Tim Sr.’s failure to pay federal income taxes in 2006 and 2007.
The couple allegedly tried to work with Tim Sr., as their statement in their lawsuit indicates, to get the IRS lien canceled so that they could move forward with purchasing the property but Tim Sr. either refused to cooperate or even respond to Plaintiffs’ repeated attempts to contact him. He cut off all communication with the couple.
This is all documented in a lawsuit filed by the couple against Tim D. Wilson. As all this was playing out into a frustrating course of events for the couple trying to purchase the property from Tim Wilson Sr., they further discovered that Tim Sr. had found another buyer who was willing to pay more for the property than the amount that Tim Wilson Sr. had agreed to in a contract to sell to them. The couple found that Tim Sr. had agreed to sell the property to a different buyer for $1.2 million — $135,000 more than he had agreed to sell the property to the couple for.
The couple took it upon themselves to (essentially they were forced to) expend a considerable amount of time, effort, and money getting involved in Tim Sr.’s bankruptcy proceeding, as well as trying to work with the IRS to have the lien removed, clear the title to the property, and thus enable the purchase to move forward. But the sale never happened.
The couple tried every legal maneuver they could, including attaching the purchase to Tim Wilson Sr.’s bankruptcy. However, before the bankruptcy court could consider their motion, the Chapter 11 case was dismissed as a result of Wilson’s failure to timely file a disclosure statement and confirm a plan of reorganization.
Tim Wilson Sr. defaulted on the purchase agreement that he and the couple both signed when he literally walked away from the deal while still under contract with the couple in order to sell the property to another buyer for more money.
In the lawsuit filed by the couple, they charged breach of contract, fraud, negligence, detrimental reliance, unjust enrichment.
You want to know who Tim Wilson Sr. is? This is a clear and shining example of the lack of character and level of underhandedness, in our opinion, that clearly shows the kind of man that Tim Wilson Sr. is.
Simply despicable, in our opinion.
