In a land-contract deal, the seller holds title to the property until the buyer finishes paying for it. If a single payment is missed, the buyer can be evicted. Drexler said he had never heard of a land-contract deal in which a bank played the intermediary. I've not seen, in my years of practice, a relationship like that, and I've been doing this 25 years,'' he said. That appears to be the role Upstate bank played with the Amicos, however.
Details remain unclear.
A prearranged sale of the house by Amico to Upstate occurred the same day. Pattison said the couple's monthly payments were made to the bank. All told, the bank purchased seven newly built houses in Webster and Penfield directly from Amico construction companies in apparent land-contract deals. In at least one case, the bank transferred a house back to the Amicos, for reasons not publicly known. McElduff said there was ''nothing wrong'' with the land-contract arrangement.