Monthly Archives: May 2017

Montana special election results coming

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Gianforte hangs on to a commanding lead of three thousand votes out of 190,000 counted so far.

Gianforte now builds to a two-point lead. Three thousand votes ahead of Rob Quist. About 187,000 votes counted. Not looking too positive for the Democrat at this moment.

Almost 184,000 votes tabulated. Gianforte breaks out a percentage point ahead.

Gianforte ahead by a thousand. Wonder whether this will be the standing pattern for the rest of the night.

Gianforte pulls ahead. By less than a thousand. Gianforte leads by 726 votes out of 181,000.

Breaking: number of precincts fully reported just doubled (approximately), to thirteen.

Quist still ahead by an eyelash.

One percent of precincts (six) finished. Quist’s lead is less than a thousand votes. Quist now leads by exactly 323 votes, out of 178,000 cast.

Updating to 175,000 votes in. Quist leading by barely one thousand votes. The Libertarian, Wicks, holding ten thousand. Two whole precincts reported. Enough of an indicator that it’s close, but people knew that already.

Update: And a few minutes later, it’s Rob Quist again in the lead, 48 – 46 percent, with now 150,000 votes tabulated. Now Quist leads by three thousand votes, less than half the eight thousand Wicks is getting. These are very early returns. A third of precincts partly reporting. Only one precinct fully reported.

May 25, 2017. GOP candidate Greg Gianforte is slightly behind Rob Quist in first returns from Montana in the Thursday special election.

With 103,000 votes counted, Quist leads Gianforte approximately 48 percent to 46 percent. Lead is just short of two thousand votes.

The gap is much smaller than the number of votes being pulled by Libertarian candidate Mark L. Wicks, some six thousand.

Mark L. Wicks

Jurisdiction, courts, and filings

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Searching for trustee filings is not a quick-and-easy process.

The idea is that the filings would show which houses will be coming up on the market in foreclosure sales; this is the kind of tip passed along in online conversation threads for would-be investors who want to dabble in real estate. In Maryland, however, getting such information is easier said than done. I just spoke with a nice clerk at the Prince George’s County Circuit Court, who told me clearly that “we are not required to keep any lists or [that] information.”

Let’s backtrack a little. In an earlier post, I clarified on the basis of information received that, in Maryland, the Circuit Court handles foreclosures. A Circuit Court judge explicitly confirmed the language of the law in writing to a troubled homeowner. All District Court judges know that house foreclosures are not to be handled in the Landlord-Tenant division of the District Court. Regrettably, this crystal-clear law has been repeatedly violated, especially in Prince George’s County, and in the chambers of Judge Crystal Mittelstaedt–where, regrettably, foreclosures have in fact been processed. In legal terms, the District Court lacks jurisdiction to help a house flipper foreclose on a homeowner.

Trying to track down ‘substitute trustee’ filings in Prince George’s County corroborates the principle. When a bank or lender plans to foreclose on a homeowner, often it will arrange with a ‘substitute trustee’, as previously written. By law, a record of the arrangement has to be filed with the county. As one typical legal website explains,

The trustee named in the deed of trust carries out the foreclosure action.  While the original trustee named in the deed of trust may institute the foreclosure, the lender will generally appoint an individual, firm, or company that is experienced in foreclosure matters to be substituted in place of the original trustee.  This is accomplished by the execution of a written document properly recorded in the county where the real property collateral is located.  N.C.G.S. § 45-10 and 11.

Figuring that since foreclosures have in fact been processed in the District Court in Hyattsville, Maryland, I should start there, I called up the court to ask how to look up trustee filings. A nice clerk in the Hyattsville building told me that was “not something we actually handle here,” and transferred my call to the District Court in Upper Marlboro. Another nice clerk there told me, very politely, that the information I wanted “sounds like it may be Circuit Court,” and transferred me there.

Once in Circuit Court, it still took a couple of tries to land in the Foreclosure Department. Note that foreclosures are indeed a department in the Circuit Court, not in the District Court. To put it bluntly, beware of anyone pushing a foreclosure who proceeds through the wrong court. Furthermore, it is a sound principle that the records should be kept in the building where the cases are adjudicated.

Last resort

Even in the right department, however, it would not be an easy or at-a-glance task to look up forthcoming foreclosures by means of substitute trustee filings. One would need a case number and would have to come in requesting to see a specific case.

With that information, one could go to Maryland Case Search, or to some law firms; some large banks have foreclosure sections in their websites; real estate firms have access to foreclosure listings. Everything is easier if you have the information already.

For example, if you already know that one major ‘foreclosure mill’ attorney is John S. Burson, you can find ready confirmation with a quick look at the multi-page list of some of his cases. If you know that the Wittstadts are walking foreclosure mills, you can easily look them up. Each of these names generates more than 500 results in the quick Maryland look-up.

Looking up the name Hijazi also generates more than 500 results. Many of these cases belong to Abdulla Haitham Hijazi, the attorney son of P. G. County DPIE Director Haitham Hijazi. Some of Mr. Hijazi’s foreclosure cases–indicated as such in the Maryland case list–are actions in district courts in Maryland. Mr. Hijazi did not communicate in reply to a request for comment.

Each page shows 25 results. One can find the results here, or go to Maryland Judiciary Case Search and fill in the search boxes with the name/s.

In a quick search of the first page, I counted two cases in the District court in Hyattsville, six in the District court in Frederick County, and five in the District court in Silver Spring. These are all cases involving real property in which Hijazi is listed as “Attorney.” In fact, Hijazi is a party in each. On the entire page of 25 cases, only seven were handled in Circuit Court (none of those in P. G.).

Second page, another 25 results. All 25 were handled in District courts–fourteen in Rockville; one in Glen Burnie; ten in Hyattsville. For those of you keeping score at home, seven of the Hyattsville cases date from 2016 or 2017 and are currently listed as “ACTIVE.”

Presumably there is still hope for those homeowners. Sadder are all the cases listed as “CLOSED.”

Third page, another 25 results. Not all are indicated as foreclosures, but most involve real property and are being processed in District courthouses with Hijazi as the “Attorney” for his company as party–twenty in all, with five in the Upper Marlboro District Court and the rest in the Hyattsville District Court.

As a citizen, I am beginning to wish that our Judicial Disabilities Commission would take an interest in this pattern.

It also looks like a viable class action lawsuit. That could be hard to pull off, admittedly; people who have already been forced out of their homes might be hard to find.

More to come.

 

 

 

The other side of house flipping: pushing out the homeowners

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Ironically, the Director of the Prince George’s County Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement (DPIE) acquired his own residential property in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 mortgage derivatives debacle.

The real property on Willes Vision Drive in Bowie, Maryland, owned by DPIE Director Haitham Hijazi, sold in October 2004 for $600,728. Real estate near Bowie and Upper Marlboro was looking up back then. Sadly, Maryland public records show that the couple who owned the house sold it to a family member of Hijazi’s in October 2009 for about half what they had paid–$332,000. The purchaser, Fawaz Hijazi, then sold the house to Haitham Hijazi in July 2012 for $480,000–an apparent profit of $148,000, which might not be enough to retire on but was not a bad sale for the still-difficult market of 2012. Hijazi also got a reasonably good buying price on a house now valued by Zillow at an estimated half-million dollars. Hijazi’s office has not yet returned a call with questions.

Members of Hijazi’s family live in the house. The residential address is also listed in Maryland’s state Department of Assessments and Taxation as the office address of Integrity Professional Contracting, one of the Hijazi family members’ real estate businesses.

Yet more ironically, following up on the previous post on this topic, one can further track the family’s house-flipping business generated from this address. As found in state database real estate transaction listings and Washington Post home sales, typical examples are listed below. The list looks like the previous one. All properties are located in Prince George’s County:

  1. In October 2012, Integrity Professional Contracting bought the house at 9805 Walnut Avenue in Lanham, Maryland, for $109,000 (foreclosure). In April 2013, the company sold the house for $240,000.
  2. In August 2012, Integrity Professional Contracting bought the residence at 8516 Potomac Avenue, in College Park, for $148,000 (foreclosure). The company sold the house in April 2013, for $280,000.
  3. In April 2013, the company bought 5701 44th Avenue, in Hyattsville, for $207,000. Sold that July for $340,000–an affordable price considering its current valuation.
  4. In August 2013, Integrity Professional Contracting bought another immigrant-owned house, at 2305 Belleview Avenue in Cheverly, for $136,000. The seller of record was William M. Savage, who has acted as a ‘substitute trustee’ in a number of foreclosures. The Hijazis’ company has also bought other properties from, or through, Savage. The company sold the Belleview house in April 2014 for $250,000.
  5. In October 2013, Integrity Professional Contracting purchased 4814 Snowflower Boulevard, in Oxon Hill, Maryland, from another immigrant householder for $105,500. The homeowner had bought the house in July 2006 for $376,295. The company currently owns this property, according to the state real property database; the owner mailing address is the Hijazis’ residence and company office in Bowie.
  6. In April 2013, the company bought the property at 4815 Heath, in Capitol Heights, for $41,000 (foreclosure). The company sold the house in December 2013 for $190,000.

Further examples follow the same pattern, visible to anyone who checks. Even without delving deep, the effect on neighborhood property values is obvious. A house that the lender could resell within a few months–apparently, since that’s what the flippers are doing–is instead sold to a house flipper at a loss for the lender and at a terrible loss, sometimes, for the unwilling homeowner. Since the house flipper is dignified by terms like “foreclosure attorney” and “substitute trustee,” all this is nominally at the behest of the bank/lender, even when to the lender’s loss. And the next buyer gets a cut-price house, often without knowing much about the previous foreclosure sale, including the fact that the nominal ‘seller’–the flipper–was actually one of the parties in the foreclosure.

The Hijazi family also owns another real estate entity, this one registered in the SDAT database by the name of Secured Improvements, LLC (a limited liability company). Like Integrity Professional Contracting, Secured Improvements LLC has a mailing address at the Bowie property owned by Haitham Hijazi. According to the LexisNexis business database, Secured Improvements LLC was established in April 2004, as was Integrity Professional Contracting. Its Maryland state filings date from 2011. Those for Integrity Professional Contracting date from 2004.

House sold by Secured Improvments LLC

As with Integrity Professional Contracting, the company designation for Secured Improvements in WaPo house sales is “Corp.” rather than the technically accurate LLC.

Again as with Integrity Professional Contracting, Secured Improvements LLC has established a track record as a house-flipping company. Again, its business pace picked up in the years after the elder Hijazi began working in supervisory positions for Prince George’s County. A quick check of WaPo home sales shows seven home sales for the company from 2006 through 2009. For 2011, eight deals. For 2012, nine. For 2013, thirteen. Then seven, six, and seven respectively for the years 2014-2016.

Like Integrity Professional Contracting, the Secured Improvements company has obtained some houses through ‘substitute trustees’ including Mark H. and Gerard W. M. Wittstadt.

Sad to say, there are more ways to game the system even than the intermingled interests sketched above.

More to come.

 

Wasn’t Hillary Clinton going to fire Comey?

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This is the kind of observation that makes some people flap their hands and dismiss ‘What-ifs’, but if Hillary Clinton had been elected to the White House, wasn’t she going to fire the FBI’s James B. Comey?

Comey’s July 5, 2016, press conference was criticized across the political spectrum. Comey announced that Clinton would not be prosecuted for her private email server–but he also castigated her “extremely careless” handling of classified information, informed the public that there were indeed some top secret emails on the server, and said that none of them should have been kept on an unclassified system.

Comey, Clinton in 2016

Valid points, as far as they went, but criticism has continued from then to now.

No reason Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be special, or left out. The July 5 presentation forms part of Rosenstein’s reason for recommending that Comey be fired. Read the Rosenstein memo here, helpfully published in full by the British Independent.

Ironies abound. Comey’s head was on the chopping block if Clinton got into the White House. That might or might not be a good thing, depending on your judgment of Comey’s over-all track record. The point here is that there has been little comment on this in reaction to Comey’s firing. In fact, there was little comment on it amidst all the media motive-hunting about Comey’s remarks eleven days before the 2016 election. The question was not raised with then-candidate Clinton then: if elected, do you plan to keep Comey on? At the time, most pundits were too busy vilifying Comey even to urge that she fire him. The gap is a little odder when you recall that they were all convinced that Clinton was indeed going to be in the White House. Did they deliberately not raise a question because they thought it might cost her voters? Or did it genuinely not occur to them?

The follow-up question for Clinton: with Comey gone, whom would she choose for FBI director? I can’t remember the speculation or even remember the question being discussed. (Admittedly, MSNBC was so insufferable–We’ve got the whip hand now!–that I had tuned out by then.) Speaking of motive-hunting, I can’t remember whether Rosenstein was considered a candidate.

But that kind of speculation is counter-productive right now. Amidst a media snowstorm blanketing Comey’s firing with the ‘Russia investigation’, what I’m noticing is that Rosenstein’s memo is surprisingly well written:

The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors.

The explanation of FBI protocol, i.e. U. S. law, here does not sound like just smokescreen, pretext for firing Comey over ‘Russia’:

The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed Attorney General Loretta had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.

Not to pile on Jim Comey at the moment, but I never thought the Attorney General had a conflict, or at least not one that necessitated Comey’s taking the pulpit. Every U.S. Attorney General is a political appointee. All of them, going back to Edmund Randolph, have landed in situations of political delicacy at least equivalent to Loretta Lynch’s.

And as Rosenstein’s memo points out, when an official has to recuse himself/herself, someone can fill in. Often that would be the next in command, a deputy–not Rosenstein, who was appointed to his current position in January–but Sally Yates.

I have no idea whether Yates would have made the kind of announcement Comey made in July 2016. If she had announced that the email investigation was ended, presumably she would have worded the message differently. When Comey took the pulpit on July 5, the effect was to pre-empt Yates at least as much as Lynch.

The memo seems to raise a question whether the email investigation would have ended then, had Comey chosen differently:

The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.

This point has not gone entirely unnoticed. Almost, but not quite.

 

 

 

House flippers help pressure homeowners into foreclosure

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Reducing foreclosure ‘backlogs’ is not the same as reducing foreclosures. To reduce foreclosures, best we keep people in their homes. Unfortunately, a different strategy is too often pursued, at least in Prince George’s County–speeding up the foreclosures. The backlog of foreclosures still in the hopper in the county can thus be reduced, on the books. It’s a strategy that benefits real estate investors. House flippers with the capital and connections to snap up a bunch of houses can then turn around and sell the houses at a profit, sometimes quickly.

Take for example the real estate company called Integrity Professional Contracting, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. On September 12, 2013, Integrity Professional Contracting purchased a pleasant home at 7800 Suiter Way, in Landover, for the bargain price of $73,000. Four bedrooms, four baths, nice yard if somewhat bland landscaping. The Washington Post’s real estate report listed Mark H. and Gerard W. Wittstadt as the seller. However, Maryland public records show that the actual homeowner was Olusegun A. Bright. Bright had bought his house in 2005 for $215,000. Forced into foreclosure after the collapse of the real estate market, he sold at enormous loss.

The Wittstadts were what is known as ‘substitute trustees’. In Maryland, these companies help push along the process of foreclosure. When a homeowner falls behind on  mortgage payments, the bank holding the mortgage note can contract with a foreclosure firm–which acts as ‘substitute trustees’, standing in for the lender–rather than dealing directly with the homeowner. Sometimes this arrangement works out well for the bank, which has fewer tearful borrowers to deal with and fewer individual cases to decide justly on the merits. Sometimes the arrangement fails to benefit the bank. 

Signs of the times

Signs of the times

The process can benefit well-financed house flippers, as mentioned. Integrity Professional Contracting sold the 7800 Suiter Way property on October 10, 2013, for $193,000–still a reasonable price for a good-sized condo in good shape, nonetheless a $120K gain in less than a month.

The company has not yet returned a telephone call for inquiry. Its members may or may not be Flip or Flop fans. What is known is that its top executive is Abdullah Haitham Hijazi, son as previously written of P. G. County’s Director of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement. Mr. Hijazi has gotten sweet press from the Washington Post, partly in support of cutting red tape, partly in sympathy for immigrant families in America.

Speaking of immigrant families–

Mr. Hijazi’s company bought another house on Suiter Way on January 30, 2014, paying Tito T. Ladipo $114,500 (foreclosure). The company sold the house on May 8 for $199,000, according to public record. The company bought 3911 Elkhorn Circle from Olushola Adetunji on September 19, 2013, for $162,000 (foreclosure). Sold on December 12 of that year for $270,000.

There seems to be little regulation of ‘substitute trustees’ in Maryland. Or–if you really can’t stand the word “regulation”–there seems to be little public oversight. With the enormous supply of homes in foreclosure in Prince George’s County, there is tremendous market pressure to ease up restraints that would keep properties from coming on the market. ‘Reducing the backlog’, again. (And “reducing regulation” and “cutting the red tape.”) Add to that a large county that includes historically excluded minorities, immigrant families, and first-time home buyers, and you have the ideal population for taking advantage of, historically under-served, with apparently little or no scrutiny from the state Attorney General. (Lack of scrutiny from the courts as an issue will have to wait for another day.)

Add further the recent down and up in real estate–the crash in 2007-2009, and the recovering housing market today. There is interest in buying houses, and there is frustration in waiting for a house to come on the market. Also, sellers leaving their homes voluntarily may choose to hold out for a decent price. And if they’re in a good position to sell, they may also have access to legal protection.

So what’s a sharp house flipper to do? One thing he can do is get in on the ‘substitute trustee’ end of the business. That way, he’s in touch with banks/lenders, with information on houses heading into foreclosure. In fact, he’s put directly in touch with the homeowners struggling with foreclosure. Another thing he can do is keep a sharp eye out for the most recent updates/information on permitting.

Integrity Professional Contracting, for example, the firm mentioned above, became active (registered) in Maryland in April 2011. The company purchased two houses in Prince George’s County in the next two years, and sold two others. Mr. Hijazi became Acting Director of DPIE on June 11, 2013, transferring from his previous county position as Director of the Department of Public Works and Transportation. A quick look at WaPo home sales for P. G. shows that from that date through the end of the year, the Hijazi firm bought six houses, selling the two in foreclosure mentioned above.

The pace picked up further. In 2014, the company bought and/or sold nine houses, including this home at 2715 Judith Avenue bought for $74,000 in October 2013 and sold for $230,000 in July 2014.  In 2015, the company bought or sold ten houses, including 804 Nalley Rd., purchased September 3 for  $100,000 (foreclosure) and sold November 26 for $210,000. In 2016, the company bought/sold eleven houses in Prince George’s County, including 116 Swiss Gap Rd., No. 14-4, sold on February 4 for $159,000 and purchased the previous September for $77,000 (foreclosure).

One cannot assume that all foreclosures are undeserved. Not all homeowners are deserving. But I know for a certainty that some foreclosures are undeserved. The homeowner, or relatives, can offer to make up the payments missed–and the foreclosure will still proceed. In other words, if the substitute trustee wants the house, once a homeowner falls behind on payments–even if because of medical bills or other legitimate issues–the trustee can still push the foreclosure forward.

Legal notice

Legal notice

From the standpoint of public policy, this is not the best strategy for reducing backlogs. The effect in Prince George’s County has been to reduce–directly and drastically–the chief source of wealth for historically excluded groups.

More to come.

“Important Notice about Eviction”

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Imagine coming home and finding a notice posted on your front door:

A person who claims the right to possess this property believes that this property is abandoned.

You just got home–from work, errands, visits. You’ve lived in the house for years; it’s your home. You and your relatives know the house well; so do your near neighbors. “Abandoned?” Potted plants on the front porch, porch furniture in place, house furnishings visible through the windows–this is abandoned?

Sad to say, some people who find such a notice on their front doors just leave. They don’t fight it. They just go, taking with them whatever belongings they can carry. They think it’s a done deal: they’ve been evicted. It’s over. Silent as it is, the printed word speaks.

But it’s not over. A neighbor of mine had this experience, some while back. Her particular posting, titled “IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT EVICTION,” told the homeowner,

If you are currently residing in the property, you must immediately contact:

Abdulla H. Hijazi, Esq., Hijazi Law Group LLC, 3231 Superior Lane Suite A-26, Bowie, Maryland 20715

with contact information via phone, fax and email.

Well, that’s one option: you could get in touch with the company that posted a notice telling you your home was abandoned. My neighbor took the wiser action of writing the judge who had jurisdiction. That took care of the abandonment claim, at least.

A call to Hijazi’s office, asking for information, has not yet been returned.

I asked the mayor of my own incorporated community what the homeowner should do. He had a quicker measure: “Call the police.” If you feel yourself to be intimidated, if you feel threatened, then put in a call to the police. The town administrator seconded: “That’s what 911 is for.” Regrettably there is no requirement that someone posting an eviction notice is supposed to let the town know first. No one checks in at the town office beforehand. You could theoretically xerox some notices, post them on doors, and nothing would happen.

My neighbor is someone I have been acquainted with for years. I know for certain that she lives in the house, did live in it at the time of the ‘abandoned’ eviction notice, and lived in it well before.

I am convinced, furthermore, that the company posting the notice knew that the house was not abandoned. I’ve had detailed conversations with the neighbor, and she is fortunately someone who keeps documents, answers correspondence, and makes copies. I’ve leafed through one of her three-inch-plus binders. She has made every effort to do everything right.

So what is the punishment for posting something you know is not true? Well, apparently–nothing. But isn’t it against the law? Well, apparently, if the homeowner is non-white–no. Or not effectively. I mean, is the poster even required to send a letter of apology to the victim? Or is an officer of the court required to apologize to the courts for what one might consider abuse of process? Again–seems not.

Giving up is humanly understandable. I have no respect for victim-blaming. But any house lost–by someone who wanted to stay in it–is a loss for everyone. This is not just metaphysics, as in We’re-all-part-of-the-great-web. It is survival in the most practical terms: if a real-estate investor can get away with this tactic against one of your neighbors, then he can use it against you. We all need to be paying attention.

With reportedly some six thousand home foreclosures still in the hopper in Prince George’s County, it is easy to understand how homes can slip through the cracks. But the effects are horrendous.

More to come.

 

 

Why is a P. G. County official (or his family) buying up foreclosed homes?

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On October 14, 2016, my neighbor received a two-page letter from the bank holding her mortgage note, M&T Bank.

Baltimore's own M&T Bank

Baltimore’s own M&T Bank

As foreclosure letters go, it could have been worse, on paper. M&T told her that it was “reviewing” her “workout package.” “It is possible,” the bankers informed her, that “we may determine that additional information is needed.” “If we determine that additional information is needed,” they assured her, “you will receive a letter identifying any additional documents that you need to provide.” Footnoted at bottom in faint and fine print was an address–a P. O. Box in Baltimore–and an 800 number for “Mortgage account information.”

The decision would be reached within 30 days after the bank received all the required information. That would be–spelling this out–the decision as to whether my neighbor was being kicked out of her house, the home she has lived in for eighteen years.

The bank said that she would receive one of five possible replies. 1) Her mortgage eligible for repayment or forbearance. 2) Mortgage eligible for trial-period modification. 3) Mortgage approved for permanent modification. 4) Mortgage not eligible for modification. Or 5) “More information is needed to make our decision. You will be contacted either by phone or letter to request the additional information.”

In proof of its bona fides, M&T signed off with one of those truly personal touches that make you wonder how a bank with heart like this stays in business:

Sincerely,

Single Point of Contact Team

Homeowner Assistance Center

The bank auctioned her house five days later. No further communication in the interim, from any person, through any medium. The letter was dated October 6; perhaps the bank docked eight days from the thirty, jumping the gun by a mere seventeen days.

The auction did not succeed. But that’s the end of the good news.

My neighbor’s house is still in the toils of the court system. In fact, it is still embroiled in two courts–only one of them legitimately involved under Maryland law.

Unfortunately, someone with connections in P. G. County had an interest in acquiring the property. Pshaw on the facts. The homeowner had cared for her mother, who died of cancer in her nineties. She had cared for her father, who died of Alzheimer’s, also in his nineties. The homeowner had lost her County job, quite possibly because of internal politics; fell behind three months on her mortgage; and has been working since 2014 to get her life back. Her house is not even underwater. No matter. The prospective buyer has all the cards–which happen in his case to include a top-tier County job as well as four adult sons and a former wife, mother of the latter, who invest in real estate via the foreclosure stream. Adiebi Hijazi, the former wife, is seen Tuesdays and Thursdays in front of the courthouse at Upper Marlboro, purchasing properties. The family has acquired quite a few houses in P. G.–all of them, as it happens, through the court of Judge Toni Clarke. “No one meets her”: the Honorable Ms. Clarke issues decisions without a hearing, from chambers, homeowner not present. The observation that “no one” meets her is not literal, be it noted. The prospective buyer of the house is present. “He goes in ex parte.”

Why is a P. G. County official pushing through foreclosures on properties he wants to buy as an investor?

The buyer is a son of Mr. Haitham Hijazi, Director of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement for Prince George’s County, Maryland. Hijazi has gotten favorable ink in The Washington Post for his interest in cutting red tape in permits. The Department (DPIE) itself touts Mr. Hijazi’s activities in its newsletter, published at taxpayer expense. Hijazi is one of County Executive Rushern Baker’s few holdovers from the previous County administration. DPIE’s responsibilities include identifying properties that are vacant, abandoned, foreclosed or blighted. His son, Abdullah Haitham Hijazi, Esq., is the person who appears in court to represent the family interests.

Haitham Hijazi, Director of Permitting for P. G. County

Haitham Hijazi, Director of Permitting for P. G. County

Unstated in the department newsletter is the fact that Hijazi and his family themselves invest in buying up foreclosed properties. Worse yet, he and his family members actively push the foreclosures. And worst of all, they are canny enough to push them through the District Court in Hyattsville rather than through the legally mandated route through Circuit Court.

Here’s where a brutal process, grim at best, not to say heartless to the point of becoming morally repugnant, gets odd. As another Maryland judge states with laudable clearness,

” . . . all of the Judges of the District Court are aware that foreclosure matters fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.”

Question from Ms. Average Citizen: If foreclosure is exclusively the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, then why do homeowners have to go into the District Court in Hyattsville to try to keep from losing their homes?

My neighbor has been represented by an attorney, a couple of times in the process; has received informal assistance from attorneys; and has been in touch with other homeowners in related cases. She and others in danger of losing their houses–and some who have already lost their homes–have had to show up in courtrooms in Hyattsville.

What she/they do is bounce back and forth between the District Court in Hyattsville–which, as mentioned, is not the venue for foreclosure–and the Circuit Court system in Upper Marlboro and Annapolis–which sometimes blesses the District Court foreclosures. It’s an agonizing process or game of shuttlecock, as our British cousins would say, or ping pong, where the hapless homeowner gets batted back and forth between parties with a more moneyed interest in the real property, though none of the sweat equity. First, the courtroom of Judge Crystal Mittlesteadt (Circuit Court), who denies without a hearing the homeowner’s request for a stay of proceedings. Then, the courtroom of Judge Brian Denton (Hyattsville, District Court), who at least listens to the homeowner, in appearance pro se. (In this particular matter, Judge Denton granted a continuance. That gave the prospective buyer more time but arguably gave the homeowner same. More to the point, the Hyattsville court did not have jurisdiction in the first place.) Then, another Hyattsville courtroom, where the homeowner’s continuance is denied. (“People get a continuance for missing a bus.” Again, shouldn’t have been there anyway.) In this case, denying the continuance requesnt meant that the Hyattsville judge “gave him my property.” Again, fortunately, it didn’t stick.

Imagine being in your house, living in your home, where you have lived for years, and facing the constant threat of losing the house any month. Any week. Any day. From a public policy perspective, what is the upside here?

Back to the court system, if ‘system’ is the term–

On a briefly happier note, the homeowner asked the (last) judge to reconsider, and the judge granted the request. The case then went to Hyattsville Judge Clayton Aarons, who ruled that the homeowner had to put up $7,500. A previous employer of the homeowner stepped in and put up the money. One for the good guys.

The case is now back in Circuit Court. The homeowner could not afford the constant legal help necessary to shepherd the matter through five or six courtrooms. Aside from the bank or the eager investor, who can afford such legal help? Pro bono legal work is not available for foreclosures, according to my neighbor. The University of Maryland legal clinic had a good guy available to help, and help he did. But he died in December 2016.

The interested real-estate-investor buyers in these cases have more options. They always have more cash and more financing than a homeowner in arrears, and more ability to hire legal talent.

They also have more legal talent on the bench–their bench–according to the accounts I’m hearing. In Prince George’s County, they have Judge Clarke. She “never decides for the homeowner.”

Questions emailed to County Executive Baker and DPIE Director Hijazi have not been returned.

More to come.