All Forum Posts by: William Hall

@ Wayne,
Only problem is DIY is the only thing that's kept me in the ballgame so far. The only concrete things I have to stand on are the parts I took care of in person. Please believe me, I wish my atty or any atty would, like my grandpa used to say, do it once and do it right! For instance, believe it or not, I built the attack strategy to even get in to
court, when every atty turned the case down, I put together breach of fiduciary duty and the judge approved. I dread every morning of waking up and not being able to just be an investor and a nurse(my trained professions). I hate playing investigator, but that's the only way things have been completed...I've received far better info from here and other agents/investors than from any attorney so far...

OK BP family, I need your advice again. I am the one that had the issue with the crooked broker, lazy attorney, so on & so forth. If you are new to my dilemma, I created 2 others threads on this issue. Last week, I fished out all the original documents (Deed of Trust, Settlement, Promissory Note, and Original Judgment)and attempted to record them. The Orange County Recorder rejected the DOT saying the notary's acknowledgment was on the wrong form. I fired off a complaint form to the CA Secretary of State today after searching for the notary, finding two public phone listings for her (both disconnected). I remembered notaries have to carry bonds, so I went to the LA County Recorder to get her bond information. The examiners there stated the whole DOT is no good; the form it is on went out of use Jan. 1, 2008. My DOT is dated Oct. 2008. The examiners also said the defendant and notary should have known both forms (DOT & acknowledgment) would have been unrecordable anyway.

Also found an internet publication that shows her and the defendant as business partners in 2011.

Question 1: Now that I have her bond info, will it cover her errors committed in 2008? What procedures will I have to go thru? Her commission expired in 2010, and she has not renewed it.

I pulled up the defendant's info while I was @ the recorder's (LA County doesn't have online info). I discovered today someone just sued him last month and was granted a judgment for $240K. He is also being sued by another party in a neighboring county (Riverside).

Question 2: Should I approach either of those attorneys by phone to represent me? Would they see my case/claim as a threat to their client's payoff? I e-mailed the atty that's suing him in Riverside County, he never responded.

Q3: Since the DOT was unrecordable in the first place, is the defendant's attorney also liable since he signed the settlement? Remember settlement, promissory note and DOT are all attached.

@Rick Harmon:

As brief as I can keep this, here goes in chronological order.

1990: Dad meets then real estate agent "EC" (just using his initials). "EC" reviews a transaction for Dad, saves Dad about 10K, Dad promises he will invest with him. Understand Dad & Grandma had a RE portfolio long before meeting "EC".
1994: Dad came into some $, and authorizes family atty "SW" to wire 23K to "EC". "EC" takes said funds and opens his own realty.
1994-96: "EC" is supposedly sucessfully investing $ for Dad bringing him a return of profit once a month (Knowing what I know now, it was probably a Ponzi scheme).
1997: "EC" talks Dad into giving him another loan of 21K to purchase a restaurant and the neighboring vacant lot. "EC" took me there himself to see it. Later found the restaurant went into his wife's name. The loan was taken out on one of our already owned (before "EC") rental properties. "EC" was supposed to make the mortgage payments, then we discover we are almost at foreclosure. Dad opens up to me and tells me all the details of his and "EC"'s business transactions.

1998: Dad, myself and "EC" have a meeting at his office where we agree to terminate any dealings. We calculate about how much "EC" should have made between the 2 lump sums given to him, and come to an agreement that "EC" would turn over full possession of a particular 4-unit apt. bldg, F&C. I check the building out myself, and have another broker I knew perform the due diligence. "EC" says he needs about six months to make this happen, the building is in his wife's name.
1999: "EC"'s visits become less and less frequent, he is never in the office, then he stops returning phone calls altogether. I go by his office and home, and find them both vacated. Me and Dad get together to file lawsuit. We served "EC"'s former broker (where he received the inital funds). I get a call back within 24 hrs. from "EC", stating we'll meet for lunch, and would not hear from him for 8 years.
2002: Case finally goes to trial. "EC" does not show, I testify in Dad's place (Dad is dying at this point). Judge decides that I was crystal clear on the facts of the matter, all paper evidence is in order to our side and finds "EC" liable for 464K.
2003-2007: "EC" completely disappears off the map. Hired 2 PI's that could not locate him, or he would surface, buy a property in another county, flip it and disappear again. "EC" also loses his RE license for impersonating a lender.
2007: "SW" sets up an estate in Dad's name, holding the judgment as the asset of the estate. After 8 years w/o contact, "EC" files a motion to have judgment set aside on grounds 1) he was never properly served 2)he does not know me, my family or why we might want to sue him. New judge considers both arguments and orders mediation.
2008: At mediation, "EC" retracts his prior story, mediator tells him this is the only case where the client (me) has been more in order than the broker. In October '08, a settlement is drafted, signed by myself, "SW", "EC" and his atty. The settlement is to be secured by the above DOT. "SW" gives me a check for 3K as an "advance". Later discover "EC" actually paid 10K.
2009-2011: "SW" becomes increasingly hard to reach, if I can catch him, "I'll call his atty and get back to you". I also served two periods of active duty, had a baby and broke my back.
2012: I travel to LA to ask "SW" to relinquish the case. He beats me to the punch, stating he has lost his license (blaming it on deceased office manager), and he is going to retire. He hands me part of Dad's file, it's several months before I receive the 2nd part. On reading the entire file I discover DOT that was signed by "EC" and notarized, but never recorded. One of the stipulations on the settlement is that "EC" is obligated to record DOT AND provide title insurance.
2013 (now): I discover Bigger Pockets, start this forum, and here I am in frustration for an answer...

What I would like to see happen out of this:
1) At the least, I would like to receive the 27.5K still outstanding. That would be enough for me to get squared away and back to business.
2) If my funds were in order AND I could find an atty to take this on aggressively, I would like to drag "EC" back into court, this time on my own behalf. It seems he should be liable for now defrauding me by a) never recording the DOT w/ title insurance as stipulated and b) borrowing against the property, while fully aware he had not completed payment of the 27.5K, thus encumbering my security. With his '08 deposition in hand, it seems like the original amount of 464K + int. should be re-instated, since the judge found INTENTIONAL and MALICIOUS fraud, theft & conversion.

Whether he goes to jail or not, I really don't care, but I am more than willing to cooperate with the Orange County DA if that's what it takes.
3) I want to pursue malpractice against my own atty for blowing multiple opportunities to collect on the original judgment, only partial collection of the settlement, and not protecting my interest once the DOT was in his possession. Again, if he had given it to me, I've recorded and researched too many docs of my own that I would just forget to record the DOT.

Off the top of my had, if the property is in an area where you'll get good, stable, low-maintenance renters, I'd keep it. Draw out enough cash to buy another, and build yourself a rental income base that at least meets your personal monthly living expenses in case work slows up again or you get injured.

Obviously, high-maintenance tenants will distract you from your main business

I have to agree with everyone...shut the water off at the main when not in use, and keep the power on (shut the breakers off when you leave), so the buyer can visualize the house as functional. Actually, you might wanna get there early and run the water faucets so the buyer doesn't see the brown rust shoot out of the faucets. Most of my sales hinged on how well the female half of the couple likes the kitchen. I'll give credit where it's due: my 1st wife was fantastic at staging homes for clients, and I learned from her.

I'm from LA, so we don't ever have frozen pipes, but my very first buy in Atlanta, the first thing I had to fix was burst pipes; seller shut the water off in January, I didn't know to get it back on immediately!

I've had that happen a couple of times. I bid 190K on a SFR in Vegas, went to lunch and found out it already closed at 190,500. I really liked the place, so I kept an eye on it, 6 months later sold for 305K! One here in LA (Studio City), I was getting the place for 575K with 75K seller financing. Brought up to condition, the place comped anywhere between 900K-1.2M! I was directed by the agent to a different broker than I normally used with no problem, I believe the broker tried to get it for himself, but these terms were only offered to me, when I personally met the seller, he decided he genuinely liked me. The seller was quitting the music industry after a run of bad luck, but the last album he went out on a wing to produce ended up being a smash! Plus, he wouldn't offer those same terms to the broker anyway. Had another in Vegas, don't remember the exact amounts, but I caught them somehow using our buyer's bids against each other to drive the price up.

Maybe more cash down would help, lenders are obviously kinda insecure nowdays. AS IS - you can't make it any sweeter; but my old broker told me once some people simply won't close until they feel someone's arm has been twisted, yours or theirs. I used to buy auction cars, and a lender told me once don't price too low or make the terms TOO easy, strange thing of human nature. I would approach my resale pricing (homes and cars) by MY bottom line, people just expect to be squeezed sometimes...

Moral of the story: Stick with good, honest people, the good deals will still come in, and I've always heard a horror story a few months later about the same deals I thought I got "snaked" on. Doesn't hurt to look elsewhere if you feel something crooked is going on behind closed doors.

@ K. Marie Poe once more,
Yes, money vs. time has been a hard consideration in this pursuit. Honestly, sometimes I have just wanted to wash my hands of it; if nothing else, the time I’ve spent being misled and getting 2/3rd’s of an answer would have been better spent so far just focusing on daily life and fixers. I will be in contact with the Bar; LA is a tough place to get your voice heard, one of the reasons I look forward to putting it behind me again.

@Deidre Brown,
Will the lis pendens still stand being that the property has gone thru default, FC, and in the hands of a new buyer presumably? I understand of course it would be next to impossible to get title insurance as the DOT stands now, but what about once it is perfected, or as Bill stated, even changed over to reflect that it arises from a debt/judgment granted in '02? I've thought about contacting the attorney suing my debtor currently, but I was kinda suspicious; I just see too many connections from what I have been able to come up with so far that they could be part of the game too. For instance, I was able to figure out through the "grapevine" that my debtor set his girlfriend up with a business and has had her sue him first. I don't know if I explained that right, but at any rate, the guy had it set up at one time that he always claimed he had to pay this company off first, which happens to belong to his girlfriend.
And wow, you sound like Olivia Pope from Scandal, lol!

@ Bill Gulley again,
I'm hoping I can perfect the deed, convert it into a marketable asset and @ least be done with this leg of the hunt! Do you think there would be any interested buyer's on BP in the event I can tie up the loose ends!

@ K. Marie Poe again,
Yes, there is a specific dollar amount the face of the DOT with a 4 page promissory note. Also, as I mentioned in my response to Dion, Page 2 of the PN specifically states the debtor was to provide title insurance, which apparently he didn't. What he did was refinance the property sometime in 2009, then stopped paying which led to foreclosure by April 2010.
I really cannot say if the final settlement docs were handled properly; I was unaware at the time that setting up the estate created a whole new case. I had never dealt with probate before, both my grandfathers had clear uncontested wills, so my dad’s death was the first I ever had to deal with unsettled fallout. The original 2002 judgment was awarded for 464K. We offered to settle at 125K in 2008; I only agreed to the 37.5K just to get this guy out of my hair, close out and move on. It’s funny that in his deposition, he admits to receiving another 5K in cash that I never knew about. I have yet to receive a document from the court regarding anything; I’m gonna have to seek out a probate attorney also just to get up to speed. I know the elements of the business transactions that led to the suit, but was left completely out of the loop when it became a probate matter. There is a clause that on the promissory note stating I have right to go back to court if not satisfied. It also specifies 7% interest per annum. THANK YOU! Food for thought and the devil’s advocate are great! If nothing else, I always thought (and so did my atty’s office manager) that I could bring an entirely new suit, b/c now he has defrauded me in terms I have in writing (P. Note & DOT), and soldiers are the easiest people to find! Red Cross promises to locate any soldier within 24 hours.