Police officer and wife trash foreclosed home - $200K damage, charged with felony

[Liberal_in_LA]

picture of trashed home at link below

Ex-homeowners charged in house damage

October 1, 2010

By SARAH BURGE
The Press-Enterprise


In what could be a first in Riverside County, a former homeowner is charged with a crime in connection with damage to a property in foreclosure.

A San Diego police officer and his wife have been charged with a felony in the trashing of their six-bedroom tract home, which was in foreclosure, in the French Valley area of southwest Riverside County. From stones smashed off the facade to dye poured on carpets, the damage totaled $200,000, according to court records.

The extent of the damage and the "obvious malice" pushed the case into the realm of criminal behavior, Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Mike Hatfield said.

--------------------------


Arthur Chang, a supervising deputy district attorney, said few cases involving damage to foreclosures have been submitted to the district attorney's office, probably because the lenders do not feel it's worth the effort.

"If it's a minor amount of damage, they'll sometimes just say it's the cost of doing business," he said.

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Tina Medrud, a credit union representative, went to inspect the home June 15 and discovered that it had been vandalized inside and out, court records show.

The two-car garage door was gone, along with gates, the flagstone patio and walkway. Some of the decorative facade had been smashed off the house and the outdoor fireplace. Walls throughout the home were sprayed with black paint. Among the items missing: air conditioners, decorative beams, countertops, cabinets, fixtures and woodwork. The stone floor in a hallway was destroyed. Wiring had been pulled from the walls and cut. Trees and bushes had been thrown into the damaged backyard pool.

http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_scharged02.14b94e7fc.html

[KingFlorez]

1. People can become so destructive when things go wrong for them

[tammywammy]

8. I looked at a few foreclosures when I was house shopping a few years ago

They were usually pretty trashed. One condo that I was really interested in (I liked the floorplan and community), was going to require quite a bit of work. The previous owners had "painted" the bedrooms with black spray paint, doors were missing, the carpet was trashed, light fixtures were gone, and there was a big hole in the sheet rock where they had cut something out. Overall it wasn't too bad, I mean it could have all been fixed up, carpet replaced, etc. But they did manage to leave a really nice dishwasher in the condo. That actually surprised me, the range was missing, but the dishwasher was there (I figured it might not have been working or they couldn't figure out to remove it).

That's on a whole different scale than what these people did.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. some banks give the foreclosed upon a few thou to leave the place untrashed

worth it, I think

[tammywammy]

10. According to the link in the OP

The homeowner demanded $10k to move out without damaging the house. I do agree that offering a couple thousand probably gets the majority of homeowners to leave without damaging the house.

I would think the persons own morals would come into play on if they would damage the house or not.

[Bravo Zulu]

2. A Police Officer should,

know better!

[petronius]

3. Pretty childish behavior, but something I've always wondered: if you have a mortgage,

is there a requirement that the house be maintained in a certain condition? If you own something outright, I assume you can mangle it to your heart's content (subject to health, safety, and sanitation codes I guess) but is that not the case when the bank holds a note? On the other hand, if you do have total control of the property, there must be a point in the foreclosure when the bank gets control - seems like up to that point you can do what you want... :shrug:

[SoCalDem]

11. Technically, the mortgage holder requires you to maintain insurance on the property

that is commensurate with the value of the home, so if it's worth an appraised amount, the insurance should cover replacement value... but it's a crime to vandalize property that is not yours..and until that final payment is made you do not OWN that home..

As long as the home is in good standing (regarding the loan) people can do pretty much whatever they want, but if the deliberately damage it, they can (and should go to jail).

[Xithras]

22. Legally, you're incorrect.

In California, you OWN the home the moment you sign papers and close escrow. A mortgage merely gives the bank claim to force a property sale to settle a debt. You own the house, but you've taken out a loan. The home is security for the loan, which gives the bank permission to take the home if you can't (or won't) pay. The bank doesn't actually have ANY legal ownership of the home until they complete foreclosure and force the sale of the property.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

23. Saying you don't own your mortgaged home is not accurate.

The lender maintains NO ownership rights when it holds the lien. Therefore the lender has no right to press charges for damages (absent obvious fraud in the OP case).

What the lender DOES maintain is a security interest in the property PLUS the contractual right to demand the home be kept in good condition. Part of the lender's interests include the right to inspect and cure damage and defects at their discretion. The penalties for not allowing inspection or otherwise honoring the "condition" clauses in the contract isn't CRIMINAL charges. The penalty is being billed for damages, attorney fees and/or foreclosure for failure to comply.

Failure to maintain or allow inspection is no more criminal than not maintaining adequate home-owner's insurance. Either one can lead to the note being called due but not criminal charges - absent fraud of course.

[Xithras]

21. A mortgage is irrelevant to the condition you keep the property in.

There is nothing stopping you from buying a $500,000 home, refusing to do maintenance on it, and letting it decay into a $250,000 hulk. Your local code enforcement department may have a few choice words for you, but the bank itself can't do much.

Legally, the bank merely holds a security interest in your property. They don't have any legal rights to it until the foreclosure process is complete. Legally, in California, that doesn't happen until the morning of the foreclosure sale. Right up to that point, you can pain the house neon green and punch holes in the ceiling if you want.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

25. That's not entirely accurate.

Every mortgage loan I've ever closed (I'm a banker) gives the lender the right to inspect and even repair the property at the bank's discretion and owner's expense ... or call the note due if the owner doesn't pay/cooperate.
Obviously, this doesn't happen unless there is some other problem such as a default.

These are contractual rights exercised by the lender - Not pre-foreclosure ownership rights as you correctly pointed out up-thread.

The case in the OP is a probably much more complicated than the article states. I'm curious if the legal issue in play is, in fact, ownership rights enforced post-foreclosure by the lender or truly FRAUD-based like the article hints. It appears they are making a fraud case in that the owner DELIBERATELY damaged the home with the INTENT to cause harm and interfere with the lender's contractual rights and remedies. I'm no attorney so I could be completely off-base. My understanding, prior to this article, would be that fraud was only there if you entered the contract with the INTENT to break it or cause harm. Obviously that's not the case here but there may be some other criminal law covering the injured party mid-contract where deliberate damage/fraud can be proved.

[Xithras]

29. True, my example probably went too far.

You're correct in that most loans give the bank a right to "repair" damaged property, so my example of allowing an expensive property to decay probably wouldn't work.

I can, however, offer a different example that not only WOULD qualify, but that really happened: I knew a couple, several years ago, who purchased a newer home at the height of the market. The home had granite counters, tile and wood floors, a pool...the works.

The granite counters were ripped out and replaced with tile. The flooring was replaced with wall to wall carpets. The pool was FILLED IN, because it took up their entire (small) yard, and they wanted grass for their dogs. They even knocked out a bedroom wall, converting a 4 bedroom home into a 3 bedroom, because they wanted to use the room as a play room for their kid. All told, they probably shaved $50k off the value of their home with their "improvements". They didn't care, because they were just tailoring the home to suit what they wanted.

The bank got stuck with it last year. Because they were homeowner modifications, there was nothing the bank could do about it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. That would be an interesting case if the lender got involved ...

.... prior to default. Absent any fraud during the foreclosure process removing a pool in good faith wouldn't rise to the level of fraud like the OP's case .....

.....BUT, I could see a lender calling a note due and/or foreclosing if they got wind of the major modifications without their approval/consent. By "getting wind" I mean a pissed off neighbor snitching on the pool-removing homeowner.

This is a more egregious example: My boss had a client get his note called due when he was mid-tear-down and planning to build a new home on the site. His cranky neighbor had a case of the raw ass over noise and dust. Unfortunately for the owner, the neighbor was sharp enough to cause him mega-trouble by dropping a dime to his lender. You see, the homeowner had a conventional loan written by my boss when, in fact, it should have been converted to a construction loan prior to demolition. I never heard the final outcome but the scenario could end in disaster for someone unable to either refi the raw land to a construction product or pay the loan off in cash.

The above story came to my attention when I had a client tell me they intended to tear down a property he was purchasing with a conventional loan we had approved for him. When I told my boss about the scenario he informed me of his clients troubles and the risks involved. At the time, my attitude was "I don't want to know about it" but now I look back and see how wrong we were to allow it to go forward. But, as everyone knows, things were loosey-goosey back in the day.

I assume more enforcement and investigations of potential collateral modifications are being pressed since everything else has tightened up so much for the last few years. Lenders are much more nervous about title issues and insurance issues so it wouldn't surprise me if they sent out an inspector at the first hint of trouble - say a late payment or squawking neighbor etc.

[charlyvi]

4. A police officer with a six bedroom home in San Diego?

His wife must make a fortune for them to think they could afford it. Well, obviously they couldn't, but they must have felt they could at some point.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. a few years ago, everyone in southern Calif felt they could afford a big house

100% mortgage

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. I have other theories, and they don't involve the wife.

If you know what I mean.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. No doubt

Frequent meetings w/ associates from Tijuana, no?

[Kievan Rus]

15. People living beyond their means is ultimately what tanked the economy

[Hassin Bin Sober]

27. And that includes lenders who marked as profitable loans they knew would never perform.

And the Wall Street brain-trusts who sliced and diced the worthless loans and sold them to unsuspecting investors.

And insurance companies who wrote policies on said loans but didn't have the capital to cover actual losses.

[asdjrocky]

28. If by people you mean bankers, they yes you are correct.

To think that it was home owners who got in over their heads by biting off more than they could afford is a right wing talking point. It is wrong to lay the responsibility of the financial crisis on consumers.

[sabrina 1]

33. That is NOT what tanked the economy.

[proteus_lives]

12. People here would probably be cheering the homeowner if he wasn't a LEO.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. .

[proteus_lives]

31. Hey, I calls them likes I sees them.

BTW, like the icon. That was a hilarious Onion article.

[BarryMeNot]

26. ..

[eilen]

13. I suppose they could have just waited

for the usual inhabitants of abandoned foreclosed property to trash it but there would be less emotional satisfaction for the previous owners.

[kaiden]

16. There'll be ads for "moving sales" in Denver.

And the items for sale include the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the granite countertops, the toilets, carpet, woodwork, doors, windows, etc.

The foreclosed homeowner gets a bit of money for stripping the house clean.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

20. I've seen those here in Chicago on Craigslist.

I remeber one - "Complete kitchen $5000! Come get it before the bank does"

[Dreamer Tatum]

17. You think this is NEW? People have had claw-hammer parties for YEARS.

I saw it all the time when I worked in loss mitigation. We just never prosecuted because we didn't want to be in the papers for it.

[Xithras]

18. As always, it will come down to proving when the damage happened.

If you damage a home while the bank is pursuing foreclosure, you can't be charged. The property is legally yours (the bank merely holds an unexercised security on it), and you can do nearly anything you want to a property you own.

Once the foreclosure is complete, the property isn't yours. Any damage is vandalism, because it's someone elses property.

Reading the full article, it sounds like these people were foreclosed on, and then evicted by the bank. They damaged the house on their way out, after ownership had been handed over. They vandalized someone elses property.

[joeybee12]

19. You know what really steams me? They uprooted trees and shrubs and

dumped them into the pool...leave the living things alone!!!!!

[northernlights]

24. +1000

I had a next door neighbor cut down 2 30 foot trees once on my property: a mountain ash and an oak,which took down a bunch of other trees on their way down.

Cops did nothing. Forest Rangers did nothing.

I was sooooooo tempted to sneak over to her house some time and cut down all of the landscaping around her house. But seriously, it's not the shrubs' fault the owner was a criminal, trespassing, thieving bitch.

[crazyjoe]

30. The bank should re-write thier mortgage now and let them keep it :-)