Landlord accused of taking rent from tenant after home is foreclosed

Friday, August 14, 2009
Jessica Cenjar
Desert Dispatch

BARSTOW • Wanda Bailey
Johnson has been renting 228 Woodham Avenue since March. She attended
church, worked as a sales representative at the Flying J and provided
shelter for her 12-year-old son and two daughters, ages 15 and 20. Her
children were to attend school this fall.

But at 6 a.m. Friday, Johnson and her children were busy loading
tables, chairs, groceries and their other belongings onto a Budget
Rent-a-Truck that sat in her driveway. At about 9 a.m. a sheriff’s
deputy, looking for Johnson’s landlord, presented her with a notice to
vacate the premises.

“My son says I can stay with him,” Johnson said, adding that she’s
moving back down to South Los Angeles to live with her older son
Elijah. “I got to quit my job. How can I not?”

According to Fair Housing Investigator Debbie Brand, who works out
of the Barstow office of the Inland Fair Housing and Mediation Board,
the house Johnson lived in was foreclosed upon in April. Once
foreclosure proceedings are started, Brand said the landlord must
notify his tenants and give them either a 30 or a 60 day notice to
vacate. If the tenant wants to they can leave, if not they can stay in
the home and continue to pay rent, she said.

Johnson said she had paid $1,200 in rent each month up until August
to the owner of the property, Dynnaro You, who is based out of Long
Beach. You, however, said other than a $500 deposit, Johnson hasn’t
paid her rent since she moved in. He also says the house wasn’t
foreclosed upon. Johnson, however, furnished bank slips for rent
deposits made to a Bank of America Account under the name of Apple
Tree. Edward A. Treder, a real-estate attorney with the law-firm
Barrett, Daffin, Frappier, Turner and Engel, who is representing U.S.
Bank National Association, the plaintiff against You, verified the
home’s foreclosure.

Attempts to follow-up with You have been unsuccessful.

“(You) did not have legal possession of the unit and was still
collecting rent from the tenant,” Brand said. “I saw a receipt for a
$1,200 security deposit and (Johnson) has receipts for bank deposits
made into that account.”

Brand said the bank skipped procedures as well. She said a
representative of the bank should have notified Johnson of the cash for
keys option, in which landlords will pay tenants a negotiated amount of
money in order for them to leave before their 60-day notice is up.

Ron Olsen, a representative of Premier Asset Service, a subsidiary
of Wells Fargo, which now seeks to sell the house, said he tried to do
that, but Johnson told him to contact You, whom she thought was still
the landlord.

“When I first got there, I told her that what I was there for was to
discuss helping her get some assistance with moving,” he said. “She
wasn’t interested. She was really between a rock and a hard spot.”

Olsen said he knows of other properties You owns in Barstow, even a house on Navajo Street that was foreclosed upon.

“A lot of people that had a bunch of property (are) milking people for their money,” Olsen said.

With all the properties being foreclosed upon, Brand said tenants
should make sure they deal with the proper manager, or if they’re
dealing with the owner, they should verify that he or she is the owner.
Education resources, including biannual workshops, for tenants and
landlords are available at their local Fair Housing Agency branch, she
said. The next Inland Fair Housing and Mediation Board workshop is in
October, Brand said.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or jcejnar@desertdispatch.com

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