Help Save All We Have Left Of Our Family

Five years later, our Grandmother Nancy passed away, leaving our grandfather alone and grieving in the home they'd raised their family in. With the death of our grandmother the home we lived in, our childhood home for over 26 years became the property of our great aunt. The house originally belonged to our great grandparents, when we were younger we moved in with our great grandmother, Zula, after her husband died. The family decided that since Pamela was the only adult that didn't work she would become the caretaker for Zula. When Zula passed away, our grandmother and her oldest sister decided to give our mother the house since we'd lived there for years at this point and a thank you for taking care of their mother. Apparently though they never official changed any of the estate paperwork to reflect this, so when Nancy passed away, her youngest sister, whom we only ever saw at family funerals became the head of Zula's estate and sold the house out from under the Wykoff Kids. We were given 3 months to pack everything and move, with no help, no family support and while still trying the help our grandfather survive the loss of his wife. 

With the help of a real-estate agent we found a house near by that was for rent, in our budget and worked fit our needs. This turned out to be a mistake, the landlord was a nightmare, the rent went up within months of us moving in and just over a year later we found ourselves looking again when he decided to sale the house instead of continuing to rent. During the time we live at this house our cousin had moved his family in with our grandfather, along with his family came his friends who started out just staying for dinner and then seemed to never leave. In the spam of a month the police showed up at my grandfather's home 5 times looking for various friends of my cousin, going so far once as searching the house. 

With us now in need of a new home and my grandfather tired of dealing with my cousin's drama, he decided to sale his home and find a four bedroom that we could move into with him. In February 2016 we moved into our current home in Riverside. Over the years we'd inherited items from our mother, grandmother and great grandmother, all of which are located in the house. When our grandfather purchased the house with a reverse mortgage, the plan was to live there for five years, allow my sister and I time to fix and build our create then refinance the house with our names joining his on the lease so when he passed the house would go to us with no drama. 

Then 2020 happened, and on July 14th, in a hospital by himself, our grandfather passed away. Leaving us with out any blood family to support us (those still alive would only show up if there was something in it for them) and in a house owned by the bank and no estate paperwork to speak of because he "planned to do that next week". The bank at the time understood the situation and with Covid programs still in place were working with us to figure out a solution to house keeping the home  .... then the loan was sold to another bank, and another, and another and then to the current bank. 

I tried to speak to the current bank when I finally tracked down thei contact information but the response I received over the phone left me to have little hope in being able to save our house. I was simple told "we can not talk to you as you're not an authorized person on the account, if the owner of the account gives us permission to speak with you we will then be able to help you." A week later we recieved the notice that they've placed the house in foreclosure, and we have till the end of January to pay off the remaining loan amount, sell the home to satisfy the loan or simply walk away from the property.  

I know this was a long backstory, and at time may seem like a bad soap opera, but it is the hand my siblings and I have been dealt to date. I needed to tell you the whole story so you'll really understand when I say ... we are tired of moving, we are tired of looking for a new home, we just want to stay where we are, like we'd originally planned in 2016 with our grandfather. With no blood family left, our circle of friends are the only support network we have, moving would mean losing part of this. Our brother, Shawn, has Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) so we'd like to keep from uprooting him again. He has his routines, he knows the area, he's finally stated feeling comfortable in this house, to move again would be upsetting to him. Our sister Heather works at Disneyland, she'll be celebrating 20 years this June, if we have to move too far away she'll have to give this job up. I'm self employed and sell my products at some local small businesses,  depending on where we may end up if we move I may lose some of this contracts. 

We've created this GoFundMe in the hopes of raising the money needed to pay off the loan and take possession of the house from the bank, but we understand that may not happen (given our history we tend to be more pessimistic then some would like us to be), so are working on a plans B and C. As we develop these plans we'll share them here.

The amount listed as our goal is the money we'd need to payoff the loan amount (including a rough estimate of the GFM fees). Since keeping this house is our ultimate goal we've gone with that amount, but as backup plans are figured out we'll post those goal amounts. 

Please help us spread our story, share this GoFundMe, share our posts on social media if you see them. We have no family to help, we're praying on the kindness of friends and strangers to survive this. Please help us start 2023 on an up note and maybe break the serial of bad news that's we've lived with since January 2009.