61 Year Old, Disabled Man Threatened with Being Made Homeless over $123 Homeowner Association Dues

March 16, 2005

By Peter Amherst

Sometimes, a name is ironically inappropriate.

Willard Harrington lives in Paradise - at least for the moment.

61 years old, disabled and living alone, Willard has an extremely limited capacity to read and comprehend written materials due to a head injury sustained many years ago. His sole income and source of support is a monthly Social Security Disability check of $824.20.

In December 1987, he purchased a home with money from his parents from Charles and Rosemary Hanks for $24,250. He has made his regular monthly mortgage payments to them during the intervening 17 years.

In July 2003, he did not pay his annual $123 assessment to his homeowner association, Paradise Pines, because he said that he did not know about it. He has told the association that he has difficulty reading.

Nobody in his association went down and knocked on his door and reminded him. Instead, the association employed Allied Trustee Services to foreclose on his home. On June 23, 2004, at One Court Street, Oroville, the association purchased his home for $1,796.95. The home was worth between $50,000 to $70,000. There was only $8,900 left on the mortgage.

On July 21, 2004, the Hanks bought the home from the association for $3,134.

Willard had no idea that his home had been sold. He continued to send his monthly mortage payments to the Hanks - who never told him that they had bought his home. Willard only learned the bad news when he received a 60 day notice to leave the property on September 27.

The physical and mental anguish has been overwhelming. He has not been able to sleep, and has suffered severe anguish and physical distress.

Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 2598 in September 2004 - the anti-foreclosure bill that had been passed overwhelmingly by the legislature. It prohibited non-judicial foreclosure for amounts less than $2,500. Senator Ducheny has introduced an idential bill in this session of the legislature.

Homeowners across the state are outraged once again by what they see as the heartless exercise of a power given to a homeowner association in the Davis Stirling Act by the very CAI lawyers who profit handsomely from such foreclosures. They wonder when the governor will realize that these foreclosures must stop.

One homeowner mused, "We are making progress here! Willard lost his home for $123. The Radcliffs in neighboring Calaveras County lost theirs for $120. California likes to think of itself as being on the cutting edge, but the homeowners are the ones being cut."

A court hearing is set for May 13. Willard may be forgiven for wondering if he is living in Paradise or hell.

Notes

Attached is a copy of the lawsuit that the The Legal Services of Northern California and the Law Offices of Joseph M. Earley filed against the Paradise Pines Property Association , Allied Trustee Services and Charles and Rosemary Hanks. The Hanks bought the home for $3,134, even though it had an estimated equity of $50,000 - $70,000.

Califonia government uses foreclosure lawyers who enforce and profit from homeowner association foreclosures to "advise and educate " the goverment and write the California homeowner associations laws

The attached related articles and cases illustrate that the foreclosure lawyers and vendors who operate these foreclosure bonanzas are the very ones California government routinely appoints to Committees and panels to write and advise the government. For example, the March 9, 2005 panelists on the California State Assembly Housing Committee and the California Law Revision Commission panel consisted of mostly CAI , ECHO and CACM lawyers and allied vendors operating in the homeowner association foreclosure marketplace.

Curtis Sproul - March 9, 2005 California Law Revision Informational Hearing helped write the California Homeowner Association laws and uses his wife's foreclosure company to do foreclosures in his homeowner association accounts

David Peters - Peters & Freedman - Department of Real Estate Homeowner Association Committee 1994

Mike Parsons - Allied Trustee Service - California State Senate Advisory Panel to Revise the Homeowner Association Laws