Homeowners pack court, stop foreclosure

Homeowners from five counties packed the courtroom here on Sept. 2 to support a Pittsburg family facing eviction in a foreclosure scam.

After a four-hour marathon session, the Superior Court judge cancelled the eviction. The decision means the Parra/Gullo family can stay in their home with a payment they can afford.

“I believe it was a victory for the family in this case,” said Delia Aguilar, an organizer with the Bay Area Moratorium (BAM), a homeowners group that is fighting wrongful foreclosures and evictions. “I believe the community had a lot of impact, that they came out here to support the family, often from long distances.” BAM organized 44 people to back up the family in court. They came from Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Sacramento and Solano counties — areas hard hit by an epidemic of foreclosure fraud and chicanery by the banks and real estate companies.

The company seeking to evict the family, Antrea Investments Trading LLC, fraudulently claimed to have lawfully bought the property from Wachovia/Wells Fargo Bank after the homeowners failed to make mortgage payments. However, BAM pointed out:

1) the homeowner was not in default, having made regular payments which the bank accepted;

2) Antrea was not registered with the state to do business in California;

3) a bogus “robo-signing” document was used to try to evict the family; and

4) there was no “assignment of Deed of Trust” with the county recorder.

Antrea attorney Terrie L. Brewer’s jaw dropped when she saw all the supporters filing into the courtroom. She exclaimed, “They bring so many people!” Delia Aguilar concluded that “if all the homeowners will come out, like today, then these courts and sheriffs may be more careful in issuing orders that can result in an illegal eviction.” Aguilar explained that it has become standard procedure for real estate companies and their eviction attorneys to “move quickly to take the homes from these homeowners, harassing and scaring them, using gorilla tactics like threatening to get the sheriff to remove them in four hours. Sometimes these real estate people will call in law enforcement even before filing an ‘unlawful detainer’ action as if it was their own personal police force.

“But if we all stay together,” she added, “we can defeat them and keep our homes.”

BAM is part of a network of groups working for a moratorium to stop foreclosures and evictions and allow people to stay in their homes. The Michigan-based Moratorium NOW! Coalition explains the situation:

“Today the federal government, through its takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with the Federal Housing Administration, owns at least 75 percent of all mortgage loans. However, rather than utilizing this federal takeover of the housing market to benefit homeowners and renters, the federal government is continuing to bail out the banks, paying the banks full value for the fraudulent and predatory loans which they created, and then throwing millions of homeowners into the streets.

“It’s time for the federal government to bail out the people and not the banks. President Obama should immediately declare a two-year moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions, during which time the loans could be renegotiated to their real value, with the banks eating the losses for the fraud they practiced. Rather than selling off government-owned housing to investors and sharks, the government should train our youth to rebuild these homes and reoccupy them with the millions of homeless and unemployed.”