Did you see Home Foreclosure Fraud in Courts?
AHRC Invites you to share your stories
August 14, 2008
By AHRC News Services
Santa Ana, California - The ground breaking story: Peters & Freedman: 2 million dollar verdict - A Jury returned a 2 million dollar verdict against Santa Rosa Cove Homeowners Association represented by Peters & Freedman - July 21, 2008 - By Richard Fredericks - Riverside County, California prompted a national reaction from readers.
Homeowners reported and expressed surprise that a homeowner had prevailed in a homeowner association case in a California courtroom because these courts have routinely stripped homeowners of their rights, equity and homes and given it to the corporate homeowner association lawyers. In these cases, the rulings state that the judges ruled in favor of the homeowner associations when in reality, the judges ruled in favor of the homeowner association lawyers who only used the homeowner association to launder their profitable foreclosure business.
Why is there a seeming unholy alliance between homeowner association lawyers and judges?
Homeowners have suggested a number of reasons. Some homeowners have asked whether HOA lawyers are secretly bribing judges. That, of course, would be a serious situation, but it is not impossible. A number of years ago, several judges in San Diego County were forced to resign because lawyers who had cases before them, had set up secret bank accounts for the judges. If any homeowner has information in this area, please submit in confidence to AHRC.
But there is also "soft" bribery. Some judges offer seminars and it is well known that some lawyers pay to attend them in order to brown-nose with the judge. As a result, when a lawyer later appears before the judge in court, the judge will know that this is somebody who paid him to attend his seminar. There is a conflict of interest right there.
Another growing area is that of private judges. Increasingly, judges are retiring and going to work for rent-a-judge companies such as JAMS. These are very lucrative jobs, where the retired judge can charge $600 an hour - all on top of the state pension that taxpayers are already giving to them.
In order to be chosen as a rental judge, the retired judge needs clients who have deep pockets. These in general, of course, are corporations - banks, insurance companies - and of course, homeowner associations, especially if their insurance company is footing the bill. Such clients are likely to be repeat customers, and studies have shown that these corporations are likely to request a rental judge who has previously given them prefential rulings.
The hapless homeowner, of course, is not privy to all of these shenanigins. Outwardly, the rental judge presents an air of impartiality, but insides, the wheels of machination are churning to shaft the homeowner.
On the bench, judges have a penchant for farming out cases for discovery to these rental judges. Frequently, they will laud the virtues of a particular rental judge. Some homeowners suspect that this is done because the judge is looking for a favorable recommendation from his buddy rental judge when he applies for a position in a company such as JAMS.
"Soft" bribery is built into the very structure of the selection process for judges. Most lawyers are lawyers because of the money. Their prime concern is not justice but the greenback. They flock to deep pockets like fleas to a jar of honey, and nothing endears a lawyer to a deep pocket like winning. Hence, winning for a lawyer becomes the ultimate value - and truth and justice be damned.
When a lawyer then decides to become a judge, he has to curry favor with the powers that be - and get recommendations from those rich clients who provide significant "campaign" contributions - as they are so nicely called - to the very politicians who will appoint the lawyer to be a judge.
Thus, most judges are born out of and swim in a sea of wealth. They are beholden to and shaped by their "sponsors". These are the switches that move them. Long buried are notions of justice and the enduring values that a homeowner may be fighting for in a court.
Most homeowners do not go to court in homeowner associations to get rich. They go to preserve the sanctity of their homes. But that, in general, falls on the deaf ears of judges who long ago had elevated money and the pursuit of money to a paramount status.
Once in awhile, one finds a judge who still has a sense of justice but the exception proves the rule. Crusaders for justice normally will never make it through the halls of money and corruption to become a judge.
So, this is the cultural climate that homeowners face when they go to court to defend their homes. A judge can knife them with a thousand cuts from behind that black robe.
The Frederick case was unusual. A jury, not a judge, made the ruling. In almost all other cases, the judges who judge homeowner association cases work closely with the homeowner association lawyers and made sure that the case is railroaded and the homeowner is denied a jury trail. A jury, uncorrupted by considerations of wealth and power, can see the stark reality of a situation, and call it as it is.
The story of Sharon Stephens