I was following Symbolman’s plight when this was happening. This was one of those cases where he was trying to raffle the house off. Raise enough money off the auction to pay off the mortgage and then give the house away. As I recall, Symbolman got around this being an illegal lottery by making it an essay contest that cost $100 to participate in.
auction=raffle
I vaguely remember this. Why did they stop paying the mortgage?