Legal Troubles Mount for South Side Investors

Legal troubles are piling up for single-family home rehabbers Chris and Aneta Urban, who are facing a new string of lawsuits over unpaid loans and ballooning debt tied to a large portfolio in Chicago’s South Side and south suburbs.

The brother-and-sister investors have been hit with dozens of foreclosure lawsuits for failure to pay debts across their vast fix-and-flip portfolio of more than 100 properties. Many were brought by individual investors whom they met through a local real estate training school. Andrew Holmes, Chris Urban’s former mentor and the head of the Andrew Holmes Mastery Program, is also suing the siblings for fraud, accusing Chris of taking loans meant for construction and using them to pay off other loans across his troubled properties.

The Urbans had been buying and flipping properties in the South Side since 2019, starting with sales and later venturing into rentals. They began having trouble paying their debts last year, The Real Deal previously reported.

Five new lawsuits filed since the beginning of October represent a combined $1.5 million in unpaid debt that plaintiffs want to recover. One was brought by an investor that Holmes accused of being part of the Urbans’ allegedly fraudulent scheme, Shirley Pollock. Through her company Best Funding Solutions LLC, Pollock is now seeking to foreclose on three properties where she loaned Urban money that hasn’t been repaid.

Another investor is looking to foreclose on two properties where he loaned the Urbans money. A third is taking a different approach, by filing a breach of contract lawsuit demanding payment for a mortgage on a South Side property, but not seeking to foreclose it. Plus, a business loan company is seeking repayment on a second loan to Urban that went bad in late 2024.

Urban declined to comment on the new lawsuits, stating he would resolve the matters “through the courts, not the media.”

Best Funding Solutions

A frequent investor in the Urbans’ properties, Shirley Pollock began investing with the Urbans in 2021 and has loaned more than $5 million through her LLCs to them over the years, TRD previously reported.

Holmes and his longtime business partner, Mary Desloover, are suing Pollock along with the Urbans on an accusation that Pollock helped cover up the Urbans’ mounting debt in exchange for higher interest payments. Pollock has denied the claims in court, arguing she had no duty to disclose her loans and that she is also a victim of Urban’s deception.

Pollock is now seeking to seize properties in Chicago, Hazel Crest and Calumet Park where she provided the Urbans mortgage loans. The combined principal for the three mortgages was $475,000, and Pollock’s lawsuit says the amount owed with interest and late fees is over $581,000.

According to loan agreements included in the lawsuit, the loans had six-month terms with 15 percent interest rates.

At one of those properties, Urban had given a second mortgage to Homes by MB, an LLC that has purchased a number of the Urbans’ distressed homes.

Pollock didn’t respond to a request for comment and her attorney declined to comment.

Pollock has also received deeds to some of the Urbans’ properties where she had initially loaned them money for mortgages, property records show.

Jeffrey Meincke-Reza

Two more foreclosure lawsuits were brought by lender Jeffrey Wayne Meincke-Reza, who loaned the Urbans’ LLCs $179,000 for a property in Dolton and $152,000 for a Calumet Park property.

According to those suits, the Urbans owe more than $410,000 in principal and interest fees at the properties. The loans were given with a 10 percent interest and a six-month maturity term, according to the lawsuit.

Meincke-Reza’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Maria Bryjak

In another lawsuit, lender Maria Bryjak is seeking $283,000 from Chris Urban for a loan that he stopped making payments on in early January. The loan ‘s principal was $186,000 for a mortgage on a house on South Prairie Avenue in Chicago. She is suing only Chris Urban and one of his LLCs, not Aneta Urban.

It appears to be the only property where Bryjak loaned the Urbans money, according to property records. The eight-month loan had a 15 percent interest rate, court records show.

The South Prairie Avenue property the loan is tied to has a second mortgage on it from an LLC operated by investor Wendy Valencia, who is also suing the Urbans for foreclosure at multiple properties.

Bryjak could not be reached for comment, and her attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

OnDeck loan

Business loan company OnDeck has filed a second lawsuit against Chris Urban over a loan that he took out in 2024. The loan had a principal amount of $225,000, and Urban stopped making payments in October 2024, around the time his payments to other lenders stopped.

Late fees and interest have pushed the debt up to $261,800, which OnDeck is seeking to recover from Urban.

In a previously filed lawsuit, OnDeck is looking to recover $87,000 for a separate $155,000 business loan Urban took out in March 2024.