I am writing this petition to give clarification and background information of the nightmare in regards to the dissolution of Freedom Estates.

Around the year 1991, Jeff Garn and myself entertained the idea of starting a Real Estate business in which we would rent out houses to help supplement our income. Jeff was a Quality Control Engineer, and I was a Director of Technology at that time. The push behind this idea was that although we were not yet married and were very young, we wanted to buy a house together, however the banks looked at us and laughed. We found an opportunity to purchase a TriPlex thru a land contract and this opened the door to our dreams. Jeff, inspired by the goal to retire early and be his own boss decided in his spare time to get his real estate license. This fueled his love and our common interest in the housing market. Conversations with a friend who had similar interests named Duane Bremke, lead to the idea to partner the masterminds together in 1997.

We started off small, with just a house here and there, until 1999 when my husband decided to quit his full time job to become an entrepreneur, and opened up a computer store. This was around the time that we incorporate our business into a legal partnership named Freedom Estates, which stood for our dream of becoming Free of our jobs thru the support of the housing industry. Being his own boss this allowed him the flexibility to put in the hours as the businesses continued to grow with both his computer and real estate businesses. Jeff spent his days either making fixes to the rentals, paying bills, attending court for evictions, or running to collect rents.

Over the course of the next several years, “life happened” and brought many changes. I had emptied my entire 401K savings to invest into houses as the stock market had take quite a hit. Jeff had done the same thing, while Duane contributed what he could spare mostly in the mental and phone skills as opposed to physical or monetary. Duane enjoyed working with the tenants and being involved with the buying and selling side of things. Jeff and I spent tons or hours inside these various houses learning to do things I would never imagine, and brought along our kids to help as well. I learned to bleach things you cannot even imagine, rip up floors, paint walls, change locks, fix damage in walls - etc. Whatever it took to clean up a place after a tenant left to get it ready for the next tenant. We liked to do things ourselves because it helped to save money and that way we knew the quality of work was good. Jeff would research and work out a way to make it happen with Duane, then we would go off and make it happen.

In the year 2005, my life changed drastically. I became sick, and wasnt able to bounce back. My lungs, being the weakest organ in my body began to shut down and I found myself in a position where I was quickly fading. Luckily we were able to get some medical attention, and I was quickly given assistance thru a Life Support system that would breath for me for the next 10 days as I sat lifeless. The Drs prepared my husband and my girls for the outcome, which they felt was death. During those 10 days Jeff never left my side, and even though I was non responsive I remember thinking "Why is everyone so sad, I am okay." Well the outcome was positive, and I was able to pull thru. However from that point on, I certainly was not able to work at the same physical and mental conditions. This lead to the eventual ending of my technology career. From this point forward I felt it was best to stay away from the physical and mental stress of the rentals and allow Jeff and Duane to work the business.

That didnt last long as in 2010 Life threw us another curve ball. All along I always thought I would be the first to die especially after the 2005 illness, but on Oct 24th 2010, in the middle of Jeffs 42nd birthday celebration, Jeff was welcomed into heaven. As tragic as this was for all of us to accept, life still moves on and I in the loving memory of my soul mate threw my grief into working for Freedom Estates to make some changes and turn the company around.

At that time the company was over $200,000.00 in debit with credit cards. My first goal was to get those paid off. With the personal donation of yet another chunk of funds (over $100,000 of unmatched capital contribution) into the company, we were able to flip 24 houses in the year of 2011. This allowed me to pay off all the outstanding lenders, and to eliminate the larger interest rates that were constantly eating away the company profits. The company was making a major turn around in business, as we were buying houses with cash and able to continue to function debit free.

2011 was a busy year for us, while I was still grieving, I figured out the bookkeeping side of things, organized the filing system, and put some controls into place to eliminate, unplanned spending. This was met with much resistance as Duane was used to just taking some cash when he needed something such as gas or food for the week, or new clothes for the kids.

2012 hit another bump in business style as Duane wanted to continue to buy , however he was no longer listening or respecting what I had to say. Specifically he would rent out houses, in which he could NOT sell, and then buy more to be flipped. If he couldnt flip them, he would then assign them as inventory for rentals, putting a crimp in the income for Freedom. Problem with that being, the interest on the borrowed money was FREE with me, but quite costly thru the broker that worked with Duane. I suggested we hold off for a bit and slow things down as we were growing too fast. Our inventory went from 13 units to now 30 + houses.

2012 was a tough year for Duane personally as he was still trying to recoup personally from not working in 2009-2010. He was loosing the battle of his personal bills which was causing great stress on him and his wife. He BEGGED me on several occasions to help him out. Because I had tightened the belt on the Freedom spending, he was not able to just take petty cash to help out with his bills. After the 4th or 5th time of his pleading, and threats that if he couldnt personally get thru he would claim bankrupcy and end the business at his choice. Finally I agreed to help take over his bills under 2 conditions. That I would have full control of their personal checking account, and they were NOT to continue to use their personal credit cards. For 1 year, I managed their personal bills along with Freedom Bills, and my personal bills. During this time I helped Duane personally pay off several credit cards and gave him a weekly allowance to live on totally over $40,000. Meanwhile, even though I pleaded with him to STOP the buying, he continued, making a real mess in trying to resolve the outstanding debit for Duane personally.

2013 solidified what I needed to do as a business owner. There was a clear difference in mind set in running a business between Duane and myself. There was also an obsessive spending habit on the part of Duanes Family that was affecting me personally. The rules I had insisted upon, in regards to NOT USING THE PERSONAL CREDIT CARDS was not being followed and the balances, even though I was paying 3-4 times the monthly payment towards reducing, was growing. Meanwhile I had college tuition growing, with both girls entering college years, and health bills in which I was having issues paying. Furthermore my savings of Jeffs Life insurance funds had been depleted with the purchase of a house that got sold and profits reinvested back into Freedom Estates, not to mention the few houses that Duane decided to purchase without my approval. This all was putting way too much stress on me and flaring up my health conditions again. I had to do something or it would not be long til the papers would be listing my obituary. With the obsessive spending traits, and the few “behind Teresa back” deals that Duane exhibited, I quickly realized that this partnership was unhealthy in many ways for me, or my kids.

In April of 2013, I wrote a letter to Duanes brother asking his assistance in dissolving the company, and asked him to relieve me of the duty of paying Duanes personal bills. I pointed out my concern for his mental stability in this situation as well as it was clear Duane was going to do what he wanted no matter what. After this letter for help was sent, the threats began both from his wife and from him personally. This only sealed the fate of the company and made it clear what needed to happen.

During the months of April - July, I sought out counsel of several experts including lawyers, tax experts, and even business advisers from LCCC. I focused on paying off all creditors of the company, and created an impartial road map for dissolving the business, and allocating the reaming assets. I felt strongly that because the business was so much a part of my late husbands life as well as mine, that it was my desire that we both start our FRESH with our own businesses free, to grow in our own ways, using our own support systems. To help ease the pain of this migration, and realizing that Duane was such a busy person with his family and work, I put some controls into place that would allow him to be up and running without any interruptions, and to facilitate the dissolution of the Freedom entity. I did what I could legally do within the operations of the company to establish separate company names, establish a Federal Tax Id, ordered checks and got forms to set up a bank account in new business names. I even filled the bank account with starting funds of $150. Because Duane was not familiar with the billing cycles, I created 'bill pays' under each business bank account to hit the correct account associated with each normally schedule bill. I even organized and boxed up all documentation as it related to the properties that Duane would be assuming. I also suggested that by agreeing to this split, I would personally release him from the over $250,000.00 in loans which we had contributed to the company, as well as the over $40,000.00 in personal draws he made against Freedom that were not matched by me as equal owner. I proposed this to Duane in Aug, which was followed by tons of calls and threats, as he didnt like the idea and felt somewhat personally insulted that I was suggesting that I no longer wanted to do business with him and that was final. The next 4 months met with threats of suing me for fraud, all the way to threats of making sure he destroyed my credit, and in return loose my personal house. I also got phone calls telling me he was calling the cops to have me put away in jail for trying to help him out, leaving my kids who had just lost their Dad and now threatening to destroy their Mom.

In June 2013 Duane suggested a split of the company in which he would get 70% of the properties and I would only get 30% Despite the over $250,000 of unmatched personal capital contribution I had made over the course of the last 3 years.

In Oct 2013, I had no other choice by to seek legal council to control his rage and stop in his threats. Thru mediation, we had finally reached a settlement that was to be signed on Dec 31 2013, however at the last min Duane changed his mind.

The past year of my life has revolved around schedules of mediation talks, broken settlement agreements, and ridiculous demands, defamation of character by Duane, verbal exclamations of deceit from his lawyer as well as weeks upon weeks of stalling. June was a milestone, as we “thought” we had an agreement, with the assistance of the Judge and Lawyers, only to have the agreement all thrown out at the last min by Duane. Postponed by a month we began operating under seperate income/expenses as of July 1st. Now after these past 5 months, Duane is making a claim he wants all properties, and will buy me out for pennies on dollar. However he has already lost one property as a result of his operations over the past 5 months. He wants to hold me responsible for the lost of 1 building - housing over 5 businesses here in Wellington. This downward spiral, only continues as the other banks are watching this and ready to call in their notes.

How can you make a difference you ask?

To date I have not had the chance to actually share my story with the courts. We have been given a court date to go before a jury, however that is another 8 months out. The fight I have given to date has simply been shrugged off by the other side implying “that I am trying to destroy the business as some evil vengeance as a result of loosing my husband.” (Actually if I wanted to destroy the company why did I invest so much into it to get it out of debt? Why did we DOUBLE in size in the year 2011?) I have sought and followed advice from his own family, legal experts, the court as well as given in to each and every demand he has offered only then to have him back out again and again. I have ignored his threats upon my family, my disability, and my reputation. I have played by the rules, within this business that was thrown into my lap, I stepped up to accept the responsibility. At this point I have given my all into this partnership of Freedom Estates, but it is NOT working. I am begging you to sign this petition, or to voice your concern, in support to end this needless waste of time, money, and energy. I simply want my life back, I want to be able to responsible for my own actions, my own thoughts, and my own decisions. I want to pay my own bills and only my own bills. I did not marry this man or his troubles and I do not want to dance around child support demands, I simply want my share of the business and the freedom to live my life and pay my dues. I want to be able to enjoy my daughters wedding in July. I want to be able to save up money and take a vacation when I need to get away. I want to be able to sleep at night and not worry about if someone is watching me. I want to grieve and heal from the lost of my childhood sweetheart, and not have to console others. I want to be able to do good for this world and for myself, I want to be FREE. Wellington is a small town, and many of you know me personally. My ONLY hope in getting this resolved is to send a Plea to the Judge to intervene, to dissolve the company IMMEDIATELY per the Operating Agreement – despite what either of us want. It is clear there is NO Chance at negotiating. This isnt rocket science, we are closing up a business, and this happens EVERY day. Please, set down the order of the law and follow up to make sure the orders are followed.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and to share your thoughts, your voice may help make a difference in my life.

God Bless

Teresa Garn