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Orlando Sentinel - Money gone, home buyers try to pick up the pieces
Fifteen months ago, Jason and Heather Wells signed over their life savings to have a dream home built in a brand-new Apopka subdivision...The Orlando builder who had taken their $75,000 down payment -- and had no black marks with city officials or the local Better Business Bureau -- also withdrew about $100,000 from the couple's construction loan with a local bank. Still, nothing...The suspect: Barrington Homes Inc., a 4-year-old company whose two principals, John and Deanna Barrington, have been arrested on federal conspiracy and fraud charges... Customers briefed by federal investigators say an estimated $5 million to $10 million is missing... What the Wellses -- and the bank -- didn't know was that John Barrington was a convicted felon known as John Jakows, who had changed his last name in state court to hide his criminal past.
Money gone, home buyers try to pick up the pieces
Jack Snyder | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted August 6, 2006
July 2002 Barrington Homes Inc. is incorporated.
December 2002 John Stuart Jakows, a felon with a criminal record dating to 1990, changes his name in state Circuit Court in Orlando to John Edward Barrington.
2002-06 Barrington Homes expands with the region's red-hot housing market, employing as many as 30 people at its south Orlando headquarters.
Early 2006 Investors in the Riverside Estates subdivision in Osceola County sue Barrington Homes, alleging they had been defrauded.
April Court orders Barrington Homes to pay Riverside Estates' investors $2.1 million.
May 3 John E. Barrington arrested by the FBI and charged with offering to launder drug money through his business.
May 30 Barrington Homes fires its employees, shuts down.
June Home buyers in Barrington's Paradiso Park subdivision in Apopka sue the company for more than $2 million. Barrington Homes' headquarters is foreclosed on and sold.
July 13 Deanna Barrington, John Barrington's wife and an officer in the company, is arrested. Both she and her husband face federal conspiracy and fraud charges in connection with Barrington Homes.
--JACK SNYDER
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Fifteen months ago, Jason and Heather Wells signed over their life savings to have a dream home built in a brand-new Apopka subdivision.
"We were so excited," Jason Wells recalled. "We picked out colors. We were visiting the property every week, visualizing how it would look."The only problem: "Nothing was happening."
The Orlando builder who had taken their $75,000 down payment -- and had no black marks with city officials or the local Better Business Bureau -- also withdrew about $100,000 from the couple's construction loan with a local bank. Still, nothing.
"It was one disappointment after another," Jason Wells said. "They kept saying they would start next week."
A hundred or more other would-be homeowners are in the same jam. They each paid thousands of dollars -- in at least one case, nearly a half-million dollars -- in down payments and loan installments for homes that were never built, in subdivisions that in some cases were never constructed.
The suspect: Barrington Homes Inc., a 4-year-old company whose two principals, John and Deanna Barrington, have been arrested on federal conspiracy and fraud charges. The company's employees have been fired. Its headquarters in south Orlando has been foreclosed on and sold.
Customers briefed by federal investigators say an estimated $5 million to $10 million is missing. And the company has virtually no assets to seize.
"We've just been devastated by this," said Jason Wells, who like some Barrington victims is trying to salvage what he can of his family's investment.
Wells, one the few Barrington victims willing to talk about his plight, said he and his wife thought they had done everything they could to protect themselves.
Wells had researched John Barrington and his company on the Internet and with the Better Business Bureau. He had talked to the city of Apopka about the builder's local reputation, since he was working on three subdivisions there -- Paradiso Park, where the Wellses had bought land; Meadow Woods Estates; and Promise Place Estates.
He had visited the company's headquarters, where he saw a bustling enterprise with about 30 employees. An established financial institution in Casselberry, R-G Crown Bank, was lending substantial amounts of money for Barrington projects, he said.
What the Wellses -- and the bank -- didn't know was that John Barrington was a convicted felon known as John Jakows, who had changed his last name in state court to hide his criminal past.
"How can a felon be allowed to change his name?" Wells asked. "That's so frustrating. No wonder we couldn't find anything out."
John and Melissa McConnell of west Orange County paid Barrington $200,000 cash and watched as nearly $250,000 of a $715,000 construction loan was disbursed to the builder. Yet no work was done on the home they were planning in Lake Cawood Estates near Windermere. John McConnell said he and his wife bought the lot from John and Deanna Barrington. Lake Cawood Estates is not a Barrington Homes development and is not under investigation.
"There's not even a rusty nail on the lot," John McConnell said. "This has been a nightmare for us."
The couple, meanwhile, have continued paying R-G Crown Bank about $1,700 a month interest on the loan for their nonexistent house.
"I researched John Barrington and the company and found nothing," Melissa Radley-McConnell said.
"Stress is so hard on the body," she added. "John and I are determined not to let this affect our health."
Even some real-estate professionals were stung by the Barringtons.
Lamine Ba, a real-estate agent in east Orange County, is trying recover a $20,000 down payment he made on a town home in The Colonies, a Barrington project on Goldenrod Road. Alex Hernandez, a real-estate agent in west Orange County, is fighting to get back a $25,000 down payment he made on a home to be built near Windermere.
Each has filed an unethical-behavior complaint against Deanna Barrington with the Florida Division of Real Estate. Deanna Barrington, a licensed real-estate agent, had made extensive use of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association's Multiple Listing Service to market Barrington properties. The company also trolled for prospects on the Internet with its own sales site.
In just two of the three developments targeted by authorities -- Paradiso Park in Apopka and Riverside Estates in Osceola County -- the losses exceed $4 million and involve more than 30 buyers and investors in those two developments.
Sources close to the investigation say that more than 25 buyers made down payments on town homes in The Colonies, the third project under investigation.
But dozens of other Barrington buyers say they paid the company tens of thousands or, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars that were never deposited in escrow accounts as required by state law.
Some of the buyers who got loans through R-G Crown have been talking to the lender, hoping they can somehow salvage a home from the mess. That will probably be difficult without more money, however.
The Wellses bought a $370,000 home from Barrington, handing over $75,000 cash. The bank also gave the builder about $100,000 from the couple's construction loan, even though no work was ever started on the house. The bank has said it disbursed customers' money to Barrington as required by the sales contracts the home buyers had signed.
Those who bought in Paradiso Park are also saddled with unpaid bills totaling more than $150,000 for site work in the subdivision -- primarily streets and drainage that were never finished. According to one estimate, completing just that work would require an additional $400,000.
The Wellses, meanwhile, have been making interest-only payments of $433 a month on a construction loan that no longer has enough of a balance to build the house that they had hoped to own.
One builder has told them they will probably need at least an additional $100,000 to do the job. They hope instead to have a smaller home built, though they would then owe far more on the home than it would be worth.
"I don't know where this is going to end," Jason Wells said. "I do know this is the most stressful thing my wife and I have ever had to endure.
"One thing we have learned is to keep things in perspective. We still have a lot of blessings to count."
Jack Snyder can be reached at
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or 407-420-5094.
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