Popular YouTubers known as ACE Family was allegedly scammed by a SUPER shady contractor over an unlivable $10 million home, and they are taking their gripes public!
The family, who boasts nearly 20 million subscribers on the video-sharing platform, made news back in October when reports came out that their Los Angeles mansion had gone into foreclosure. But the family, who films many of their videos in that high-profile home, now claims that the foreclosure situation is not because they weren’t paying their bills!
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Speaking to DailyMail.com, mom Catherine McBroom (pictured above, inset) recounts how what was supposed to be their dream home (also pictured above) quickly turned into a “money pit” after they were scammed by a contractor who didn’t do what he said he would do — and allegedly FAKED their credentials!
Catherine explained that she and her husband, Austin McBroom (also pictured above), were looking for a new home when they found one that was originally built as two different homes set on one large lot. They fell in love with the place, and ultimately decided to join the two houses together as one, as Catherine explained:
“At the time, we were asking [the contractor] if it would be possible to build just one house on that property because we really liked it… We saw what he had done with both of the houses — they were very modern, really our style so we asked him if we could combine the property, kind of as a joke. But he ended up coming back to us a week later and saying, ‘oh yeah, I can actually do it, I can get the permit for it and we can do it.’ I was kind of desperate to just find a place to call my own and I was really excited to build my house and make it how I want it.”
That began an odyssey with the contractor that, the McBrooms say, turned out horribly — ultimately leading to the foreclosure of the property.
Explaining how the work on joining the two homes as one quickly went from good to bad, Catherine said:
“I put a couple of million dollars into the property, put an extra couple million to finish the property and all the changes that we added. We paid [the contractor] for those changes. Him and his wife had made an LLC or a corporation under a random name, and I didn’t know that at the time… I transferred the funds to finish the house and they dissolved the company within weeks. They took the money and ran, and they never came back.”
OMG!
And after the contractor allegedly ran out on them, the family quickly determined that the house had major issues — like no gas and no heat, and thus no hot water!
WTF?!
The family claims they were paying a $70,000 monthly mortgage payment to live in a glass box with no climate control for MORE THAN TWO YEARS!
Catherine explained:
“When you don’t have gas, you don’t have heat. The winters are getting colder now due to global warming, and I have two babies and I’m pregnant and I’m freezing because I have a glass home with tile floors. I got pregnant [with son Steel] two months after I moved into the house. It was hard for me because I had to get accustomed to all of the things I didn’t have in my home. For example, I couldn’t do laundry, I couldn’t dry my clothes. I had to hang everything or go to the laundry mat. Mind you, I’m living in a $10 million home, and this is so unacceptable.”
The mom also explained that her family was unable to just simply move out of the house after finding all the issues, because they were already attached to the mortgage, and the lease on their prior place had run out.
So, forced to move in to a bad situation, Catherine reflected on how they tried their best to make the most of it:
“I’ve always been very grateful to even have a home. So when all of these things were happening, I was just like, ‘I’m going to see the positive in this.’ I never complained, I was never emotional about it. No one really knew except our really close friends and family members. When you’re paying $70,000 a month on a mortgage, you would expect to have the best. And I didn’t have the best and I wasn’t happy. I’m freezing and the home isn’t built right, and that’s not fair, that’s not right. Dealing for that for so long was really hard.”
Crazy! And to do all that for two years is WILD!
The family investigated a bit and claims they discovered the contractor was faking his credentials! The McBrooms alleged the man was apparently using somebody else’s contractor’s license, and had reportedly scammed them in the process, too.
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Trying to find a solution, the family went to the city to see if they could get their house inspected in order to do upgrades. It was then that they discovered the place didn’t even have a certificate of occupancy! The certificate, which is required for someone to live in a home, was another thing the fake contractor hadn’t gotten, as Catherine recalled:
“[Our contractor] kept saying, ‘I’ll get it, I’ll get it.’ He left the site and I never got the certificate of occupancy… I still never got it to this day. Every time we asked the city to come out and do the inspections to get the certificate of occupancy, no one ever showed up. And when we did have someone finally show up, they said there were so many mistakes that the builder made that it would never pass inspection, even if I spent millions of dollars it would never pass inspection because he did the job so poorly.”
That is so frustrating! Word to the wise, if you ever feel like your contractor is giving you the runaround, DON’T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP! Oftentimes, the only person protecting you is YOU!
As the home eventually went into foreclosure, the McBrooms decided to cut their losses and just stop losing money on the horrible situation.
Catherine said:
“All the money went down the drain, and the house went under foreclosure because I didn’t have a certificate of occupancy. When it went under foreclosure, the only way to save it if we wanted to, was to put another million dollars into it. I still wouldn’t have had the certificate of occupancy so I still wouldn’t legally be a tenant at that home. So my husband and I decided, let’s not put more money into this. This is a money pit, let’s just let it go and find a new house and move forward.”
Wow!
After finally moving out and finding a place to rent, the McBrooms started looking into the contractor more — and discovered that he had already filed for bankruptcy! That filing led them to realize that it wouldn’t be in their best interest to press legal charges against him, as Catherine explained:
“The guy went under bankruptcy, and when you go under bankruptcy there’s really nothing you can do about it. At that point, I was like, we’re not going to sue him. Why are we going to spend all this time and energy suing someone who has nothing? At the time, my goal was to get that certificate of occupancy, I was honestly planning on staying there forever, I was planning on fixing the mistakes that the contractor had done. I wanted to save my house, I already put millions of dollars into it. But when we never got the certificate of occupancy that’s when we realized, we’re not going to ever move forward with this, there are way too many mistakes.”
By now, after the family moved out at the start of December, Catherine has come to some kind of uneasy conclusion about the whole thing.
She explained:
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, at the end of the day that was a learning lesson to me. I didn’t have the right team, I didn’t have the right people looking through my stuff. Everyone involved was there just to make money off of me. That’s something I had to learn and I’m already passed that.”
And she added one more sentiment to this whole wild situation, concluding:
“We made a bad investment, we got screwed over, life moves on.”
No kidding. Sounds like
Like we mentioned, the ACE Family moved out of that house at the beginning of this month. They posted a video to their channel showing the house one more time and reflecting on their final day living there (below):
Such a wild story!
Guess there’s a lesson here for all of us and our real estate hopes and dreams… Stay safe out there, everyone!
[Image via ACE Family/YouTube]
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