A COUPLE may face homelessness if they cannot find somewhere to live after being evicted from their home.

Mary McLain and Greg Goodman of Kansas were served eviction papers in August 2022.

The eviction papers stated that McLain and Goodman did not pay their rent or mortgage payments, however, McLain said they have never missed a monthly payment.

After going back and forth for several years, the couple was told on January 20 that they had 21 days to leave their home, and they’re now searching for somewhere else to go.

“We are looking for another place to live, of course, but the prospects are grim,” McLain told Newsweek.

“The housing crisis is heavy everywhere due to the financial help available due to COVID being withdrawn.”

The couple had a contract for deed on the home which is owned by Glen and Betty Penner.

The contract means that the buyer will acquire possession of the home immediately and pay the purchase price in installments over a period of time, but the seller will retain the legal title until all payments are made.

McLain and Goodman were using Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance payments to help pay for the home between 2021 and 2022.

They applied for the program after Goodman lost his remodeling contracting job due to COVID-19.

The Penners were not too keen on the fact that the couple was using the assistance program to pay for the home.

“We explained that the payments had been made to them, accepted by them, and it did not matter from where the money originated,” McLain said of her interaction with Betty.

“She angrily screamed back that it ‘did matter where it came from.’ She hostilely stated we were the ‘worst tenants’ and how ‘she and her husband were finished with us.'”

McLain and Goodman found an attorney when they applied for free legal representation from Kansas Legal Services in September 2022.

Their attorney found that the eviction was void because they were under contract for deed on the home.

They won the case and the judge dismissed it, however, a few months later, the Kansas Homeowners Assistance Fund denied their application because the Penners never responded to accept the payment.

Because of this, McLain and Goodman were served with foreclosure papers from the homeowners.

They represented themselves in court on January 19 where the judge proclaimed they had lived in the house for a year without paying their monthly dues.

“While true, that statement is not accurate,” McLain said.

“The judge did not acknowledge the decision – to refuse payment was the only reason those months went unpaid.”

However, the contract for deed stated that if the buyer was more than 45 days late on payments, the relationship would then shift to a landlord-tenant situation.

While McClain thought the contract was deceptive, she did admit that she and Goodman did not fully understand that if payments were more than 45 days late, the relationship would legally change between the buyer and the homeowner.

Attorney Nick Steinwart who represented the Penners said that the contract was not misleading and that they did not refuse any payments.

“The Penners did not refuse any mortgage assistance payments from KERA,” Steinwart told the outlet.

“In fact, the Penners presented evidence of those payments at trial, showing they were credited to the loan.”

“The judgment was granted in this case because the court found there had been a default under the contract. Payments were not made as they came due, even after accounting for the KERA payments,” Steinwart continued.

“There is nothing deceptive about this simple, two-page contract which is considerably easier to understand than a traditional lender’s mortgage which usually runs to 15 pages of legal jargon.”

The U.S. Sun has reached out to Nick Steinwart for further comment.