Peter Viles over at the LA Time's LA Land Blog brought U.S. Representative's Laura Richardson's foreclosure to my attention and wondered if I could shed some light on the contradiction between the reporting that her 2nd home in Sacramento had been foreclosed on (which we confirmed), and her office's statement denying the foreclosure. Let's dissect the statement one claim at a time:
- "the residential property in Sacramento California is not in foreclosure...". Having been sold at auction on May 7, 2007, with the Trustees Deed transferring the property recorded on May 19, 2007, as document number 487, the property is no longer "in" foreclosure, it has instead been foreclosed "on".
- "and has NOT been seized by the bank" It also has not been and will not be "seized by the bank" as it was also sold at the auction to a 3rd party investor - Jim York's Red Rock Mortgage. As such seizing the property was his responsibility, not the banks.
- "I have worked with my lender to complete a loan modification and have renegotiated the terms of the agreement -- with no special provisions. I fully intend to fulfill all financial obligations of this property." Had she only not said, "this property" she'd be in good shape here too. Turns out her home in Long Beach was also recently in foreclosure with a Notice of Default filed by Title Trust Deed Service Company with the LA County Recorders office on March 31, 2008, as document number 546450 on behalf of Litton Loan Servicing. According to that document she was $19,921.74 behind on that mortgage as of March 28, 2008.
Checking on the trustee sale number for this default it appears that this foreclosure action has in fact been canceled - quite possibly due to a loan modification as claimed. Perhaps she simply got confused regarding which of her
two foreclosures she was talking about. I know nothing about Rep. Richardson except that she certainly isn't alone in facing foreclosure difficulties. I hope that rather than running from this she stands up and talks honestly about her personal foreclosure crisis rather than simply trying to walk away.