Angry Homeowners Planning to Picket Palm Springs Senator

January 30, 2003

By AHRC News Services

Legal rip-offs are commonplace in California homeowner associations. Many Californians lose their homes to collection lawyers who file lawsuits that judges call "illegal" , and lie in courts to steal homes for lawyers fees.

Many seniors from Canada and other states are lured into the warm desert areas around Palm Springs. Many lose their homes to these legal con artists.

A private bingo club owner has been hauling a groups of elderly homeowners repeatedly into the courts to force them to pay him $960 a year. They do not want to use his club - one lady in her nineties said she has not gone there in twenty years. The economic incentive is clear. At $960 per year for at least 577 homes, the annual take would be $553,920.

(Reliable reports indicate that there is another developer here who has tried to impose mandatory membership in a private club on the homeowers. This would guarantee an annual take of over $1 million. a year for the developer.)

Despite numerous requests to Jim Battin, the California state senator for Desert Hot Springs, and his 14 member staff, he has refused to do anything about the plight of the many seniors living at the Desert Crest development.

They have had numerous court rulings in their favor but the predatory lawyers keep their legal meters running. They keep hauling them back into court repeatedly and terrorizing them with threats of liens and foreclosures. Some have died. Some turned in their homes for lawyers fees and walked away . Others see all their life savings drain out at $250 an hour to pay lawyers to defend themselves. They have lost their savings and live in fear of losing their trailer home shelters.

A group of concerned citizens has announced that they are planning to picket Battin's office, and are looking into the possibility of recalling him.

If you can help please call AHRC volunteers at : (949)366-2125

If you know of lawsuits involving Peters & Freedman and Peter & Freedman Assessment Collections , please fax, email, or use the AHRC lawsuit submission form to send them to us.

Thank you.