WTF? Squatters Take Over $2.6MM Home In OC. Owner - And Police - Can't Get Them Out.

But in California, as in every other state, squatters can have legal rights that shield them for an extended time from police action and irate property owners. The legal concept dates back about 600 years in agrarian European culture, when it was believed it was better to have someone take over a property and make it a home than have it sit unoccupied and become an unproductive eyesore. Though controversial, the notion was handed down to our own legal system at the creation of our country, and it remains largely intact. Some locales around the nation have strengthened squatter rights by treating them as legal tenants after just 30 days.

In California, squatters can grab legal possession of someone else’s property in what’s called an “adverse possession” if they take certain steps, such as moving in with furniture, paying outstanding property taxes, putting utilities in their names, and cleaning up the property from overrun grass and weeds. There’s a catch: They have to get away with the scheme for five years to hit the homeowner jackpot.

Hotelier leaves home for a week so it can be decorated . . . then 15 jobless Italian squatters move in

In the middle of completely refurbishing his five-bedroom house, Connan Gupta felt he deserved a week off.

It is a decision he is now regretting because 15 squatters took advantage of his short absence to occupy the £700,000 property.

The jobless Italians changed the locks and have taken up residence along with their three dogs and two cats.

The squatters claim the front door was open when they arrived at the house two weeks ago.

One, Valentina, 26, said: ‘None of us have any money or jobs. I don’t feel guilty about being here because no one else had been here for at least two years, the neighbours told us.

‘There’s no sink, no running water, no electricity, no carpets and the place was filthy. All of the owner’s stuff was packed away and stored.

‘I’ve never squatted before but when three of us found it we called our friends who are having difficulties of their own and told them about it.

Based on BBB files, this business has a BBB Rating of B- on a scale from A+ to F.
Reasons for this rating include:
•Length of time business has been operating.
•6 complaints filed against business

...

These complaints concerned :
+ 1 regarding Advertising Issues

+ 1 regarding Contract Issues

+ 1 regarding Refund or Exchange Issues

+ 2 regarding Sales Practice Issues

+ 1 regarding Service Issues

These complaints were closed as:
+ 6 Unpursuable. Company cannot be located.

http://www.bbb.org/south-east-florida/business-reviews/mortgage-services/loan-relief-group-in-lighthouse-point-fl-92010293

if your tenant moves out and it takes you a few weeks to find another tenant (the case here) you deserve to lose your entire investment?

there is no "squatting," to squat, there has to be an abandoned property that someone then moves in and legitimately tries to fix up, see??? THIS property was never abandoned, it was supposedly safely behind a guard shack

She bought the property four years ago with her sister as an investment and leased it to tenants. The housing crash hit her hard, and she wants to sell the place. Unfortunately for her, the house has the Duncans in it.

California House Thieves Arrested

Jesus Duran Aguayo, 52, real estate broker, and Sofia Aguayo, 52, real estate agent, husband and wife, both of Monterey Park, California were booked in the Los Angeles County Jail on $1.4 million bail in connection with a ‘squatter’ scam in which the defendants victimized elderly and other homeowners by unlawfully taking possession of roughly 100 houses, and subsequently renting out the property and keeping the income for themselves. Each will be charged with one count of grand theft, two counts of residential burglary, two counts of forgery, two counts of vandalism, four counts of trespassing, seven counts of filing false documents, two counts of elder abuse and one count of conspiracy. If convicted on all counts, each defendant could face roughly 20 years in state prison.

A year-long investigation by Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s office revealed that since at least April 2005 the Aguayos had perpetrated a complex variation of the illegal squatter scheme. According to court documents filed by Lockyer’s office in support of the search and arrest warrants, the basic scam worked like this:

First, the Aguayos would troll Los Angeles County, California looking for homes for which back taxes were owed. They then conducted surveillance on such homes to find out if they were occupied. If they determined the homes were unoccupied, they paid the delinquent taxes. They then filed fraudulent quit claim deeds that purported to transfer the property between themselves - without the legal owner’s knowledge or consent.

Having used fraud to lay a phony legal claim to the property, the Aguayos put fences around the home, made repairs, then rented the house and kept the money. When confronted by the rightful owners or their family members, the Aguayos in some cases lied or forged documents in an attempt to keep possession of the homes, the court papers allege. The investigation uncovered about 100 instances in which the Aguayos attempted to perpetrate some form of this fraud.

In the process of unjustly enriching themselves, the defendants inflicted severe financial damage on their victims, said Lockyer. He cited court documents filed by his office that allege the defendants’ use of a ’sophisticated and organized criminal technique‘ defrauded victims of real and personal property valued at more than $5 million.

A CBI agent’s court declaration, submitted in support of the search warrants, details seven cases in which the Aguayos perpetrated the alleged crimes. One especially egregious case involves a 78-year-old Los Angeles homeowner named Richard Dee. He told investigators that when he was living temporarily in a nursing home, he forgot to pay property taxes on the home he inherited from his mother.

In Dee’s absence, the Aguayos perpetrated their fraudulent scheme to take possession of his home without his knowledge. Dee’s neighbors believed he had died and that the house had been sold. Neighbors told investigators that all of Dee’s ‘furniture and personal belongings, including old family photos and his mother’s paintings,’ had been tossed into a garbage bin in front of the home. Dee’s 1967 red Ford Mustang also disappeared, neighbors told investigators, and a chain link fence was placed around the house.

With help from a legal aid attorney, Dee eventually got his home back from the Aguayos. But he can’t live in the house because the Aguayos failed to finish the work they started on the roof. As a result, Dee has been forced to continue living in a nursing home.

‘These defendants have lied, cheated, stolen and unjustly enriched themselves through criminal conduct,’ said Lockyer. ’They have taken people’s homes out from under them, committed fraud to keep possession of those houses, and in some cases trashed victims’ family pictures and other cherished belongings. They have victimized vulnerable folks, including the elderly and people suffering from dementia and other mental illnesses. My office will work hard to bring justice to them and their victims.‘

Consumers who feel they have been victimized by a similar real estate scam should file a complaint online at the Attorney General’s web site, http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL, or by regular mail addressed to Public Inquiry Unit, Office of the Attorney General, P.O. Box 944255, Sacramento, CA 94244-2550.

http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/california_house_thieves_arrested/

Woman Indicted for Mortgage Rescue Scheme
Karen Tappert, a Nevada resident, was indicted for a mortgage rescue scheme involving 5 properties in Nevada, New Mexico and California.

According to the indictment, from late 2007, to November 2009, Tappert offered mortgage rescue services, rescuing mortgages by recording fraudulent deeds that purported to convey the property from the true owner to a business entity that she controlled.

The indictment also alleges that Tappert engaged in a "squatter's scheme.'' The squatter scheme entailed squatting on foreclosed properties that were abandoned. From December 2009, to approximately February 2010, Tappert located foreclosed properties and filed fraudulent deeds that she notarized purportedly conveying the property title to a business entity that she controlled. Tappert then used the properties for own use, either renting them out, or selling them.

The properties involved in the scam include:

...

http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/woman_indicted_for_mortgage_rescue_scheme/

Two Indicted in Shaker Heights, Ohio House Theft
Lenard and Williams Face Multiple Counts

Detectives issued an arrest warrant for Richard “Rico” Lenard, 26, Richmond Heights, Ohio after a Cuyahoga County, Ohio grand jury indicted him on charges of receiving stolen property, forgery, tampering with records, telecommunications fraud, uttering, money laundering, falsification, aggravated theft and insurance fraud in connection with his alleged theft of a home in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Tara Vaden Williams, 35, who lived in the property and whose name was listed on the deed, was indicted on three counts of tampering with records.

According to investigators, Lenard obtained title to the home by the used of forged documents shortly after its owners moved to a nursing home. Lenard received $160,000 from a $240,000 mortgage he obtained on the property, based, in part, on forged rent checks from Williams to Lenard. The son of the owners discovered squatters living in the home after his parents died. Title to the home was previously returned to the son through the civil court system.

http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/two_indicted_in_shaker_heights_ohio_house_theft/

Grand Theft House
Squatters: The latest real-estate menace

Vacant properties across the country are being seized by a new breed of squatters. They're organized and often armed with fake paperwork, and it can take months to get them out.


When he moved in, David Dobbs did the same things most people would do when they set up in a new house. He unpacked his belongings, hooked up cable, transferred utilities, filled the swimming pool and watered the lawn, which was withering under the hot California sunshine.

"It was like he had just moved in and was a proud new owner," says Prudential California real-estate agent Tom Tennant, who listed the Corona, Calif., property.

The problem was, Dobbs had no right to move into the house: He was a squatter. The vacant house he occupied on affluent Star Canyon Drive was a foreclosed property owned by a bank, and it was in escrow to a new owner.

Dobbs is part of a troubling new breed of trespassers and con artists moving into vacant foreclosures across the country. Unlike most squatters, these people aren't derelict and living on the streets, and they don't move on once discovered by police or sheriff's officers. It can take months to get them out, agents and attorneys say.

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," says Michigan real-estate broker Ralph Roberts, author of "Protect Yourself from Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud." "You can call the police, but the police aren't necessarily going to move them out."

That's because some squatters successfully confuse police by claiming they have a right to be there, often showing bogus leases, as Dobbs did, to put off being evicted.

...

The woman accused of providing Dobbs with the bogus paperwork, Gwendolyn Johnson, is reported to have filed about a dozen deed transfers at the county recorder's office for houses where she planned to move squatters. She told the local newspaper that she seizes possession of these properties and leases them out to tenants for a one-time fee of several hundred dollars. (Johnson was recently arrested on a felony charge of falsifying documents and is out on bail awaiting her court date.)

...

http://www.trashoutpro.com/news-grand_theft_house.html

The kitchen has no table. There are no plants, paintings, rugs, bookshelves, floor lamps, chairs, desks or knickknacks that normally indicate a house is occupied.

But, I ask him, how exactly did they even come to consider someone else’s three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath pad their “own home”? He stares at me. Then he gives a toothless smile, shakes his head and says, “I’m not allowed to talk about that . . .

This isn’t the first time the Duncans have lived with this kind of stress. Last year, they slipped into a vacant $330,000 Ladera Ranch condo. After hiring lawyers, the owner served the couple notice to leave in May and didn’t get his place back until mid-October, according to court records. Superior Court Judge Corey S. Cramin allowed part of the delay after Robin Duncan, who claimed ignorance of real-estate law, declared it would cause the couple “substantial hardship” to vacate the property any earlier.

But there was also this: The Duncans might have occupied the condo longer if the owner hadn’t agreed to the couple’s handwritten list of demands. How bold were they? They chose the departure date they wanted and required their credit histories not reflect the mess. They also told the owner that if they left any trash behind, he could dispose of it himself.

And if things don’t work out for the Duncans in Newport Coast, one acquaintance’s account suggests they’re always on the lookout for new . . . opportunities.

“One day earlier this year, I’m serving a legal notice at a property in Quail Hill in Irvine,” says a private investigator who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity. “This guy drives up in a Mercedes, rolls down his window and asks, ‘Did you just leave that house?’

“I said, ‘Yes,’ and this guy says, ‘What were you doing?’ I said, ‘What’s it to you?’ and he said, ‘My name is Chris, and I buy properties all over the place.’ Then his wife, Robin, steps out of the car, introduces herself and shakes my hand. It was weird. She is very good-looking, and he is, well, he’s odd—very hyperactive. I remember thinking, ‘What is she doing with this guy?’ Anyway, he asked for my business card and told me that he might share an opportunity to make lots of money.”

...
he basically tells me that he seizes houses under adverse conditions. He quoted some law I don’t remember and said, ‘It’s totally legal.’ So, he gave me a big list of homes and asked me to go see if they were vacant.”

The PI says he checked “a couple of homes in Ladera Ranch” for him but grew leery. “Chris promised a big pay-off

"Priority Rose Children's Outreach" in Bothell.

That's a charity that was incorporated only two weeks ago, according to the state Secretary of State's Office. Its purpose is listed as "spiritual training for adults and children in a religious safe environment for the development of all mankind."

That sounds nice. But the phone number for the charity is also the number for a Bothell company called NW Note Elimination that specializes in "eliminating mortgages." It does this by finding flaws with loans or titles and exploiting them to stake outright claims to property.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2012101648_danny13.html