Predatory landlord forces Wildflour Bakery out.

By Lucie Shores

We recently lost a very successful and popular business because of a predatory and litigious landlord, supported by a flagrant miscarriage of legal process in Wallowa County small claims court, in Joseph, Oregon.   Because we asked to include some language in the new lease that would protect us as a business tenant, we were summarily evicted and had to scramble to save the trade fixures by assigning them to a possible buyer. The landlord acted in contempt of a court order in locking us out before all fixtures were removed.  The local judge ruled against us in violation of the Oregon Statute prohibiting a landlord from benefitting from tenant property or fixtures being confiscated or made inaccessible to the tenant for the purpose of enriching the landlord.  Not only did we lose our property, but any ability to collect from the buyer who the landlord is preventing from setting up the bakery and getting permits to operate.  Suppliers have also been called and told not to do business with our buyer.  We have lost tens of thousands of dollars in income and are ordered to pay the predator 4,800 for damages to the property that the local jobbers estimated at $84.00  to replace /repair as a result of working quickly to remove our own property before we were locked out.  

We also have proof of the same realtor/landlord causing an earlier home of my husband to be foreclosed on without due process…later they sold it to a new owner.  He trusted these people when they told him they were arranging for a renegotiation of the morgage payments after his wife left, (he was a retired teacher and veteran, employed part-time by the USDA forest service).  Then they said the house has been sold online, but we discovered it was actually auctioned off six months later in the lobby of the courthouse!  

Beware of real estate deals in Wallowa County, OR and specifically in Joseph, Oregon….the nice folks who live there are overruled by a lawless bunch of bushwhackers!

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