The Richardson mess: She defaulted on three houses, report says

U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson was in default this spring on three separate California houses, and lost one to foreclosure, according to a hard-hitting report in today's Daily Breeze.

The Daily Breeze's Gene Maddaus: "Rep. Laura Richardson, who lost her Sacramento home in a recent foreclosure auction, has also defaulted on properties in Long Beach and San Pedro, records show."

Richardson, a Democrat from Long Beach, has declined to answer detailed questions about her finances, but has blamed her financial woes in part on the distractions caused by her whirlwind political rise, which saw her climb from local politics in Long Beach to the state Legislature in Sacramento and then to Congress in the space of two years. She also has heavy debts from her campaign for Congress in a special election last year. But with a congressional income of nearly $170,000, it is not clear why she failed to make payments on all three properties, and faced potential foreclosure on all of them.

The newspaper reports Richardson had fallen behind by $12,400 on payments on a San Pedro home in March, and was threatened with foreclosure on that property, and had fallen behind by $19,900 on payments on a Long Beach property in March, though it appears she paid that balance off.  She owed more than $570,000 on the Sacramento house when it went into foreclosure this spring.

More: Richardson "was able to bring her payments up to date on the Long Beach home relatively quickly, but the San Pedro property lingered in the foreclosure process for almost eight months, and still has a pending auction date.  In her first interview since the news broke Tuesday that her Sacramento home had been foreclosed, Richardson blamed the foreclosure on a miscommunication by her lender. She offered no apologies for failing to make payments on three separate homes and expressed no regret for failing to pay nearly $9,000 in property taxes.

More: "In her only admission of fault, she said she could have acted more quickly to correct the situation. 'I should have moved forward in an earlier fashion,' she said. 'I acknowledge that. I intend never to conduct business in that fashion again.'"

The Sacramento publication Capitol Weekly first reported this week that Richardson had lost her Sacramento home to foreclosure, owing more on the house than the original purchase price when it was auctioned off. Richardson initially denied the report, saying she had worked with her lender to renegotiate the mortgage. She now says she was unaware the house was sold at auction until this week, and believes the sale was improper.

The Breeze reports that Richardson declined to answer numerous questions about her finances, including how many payments she had made on the Sacremento house. She purchased the house in January 2007 for $535,000 and owed more than $570,000 on the property when it was foreclosed.

Richardson attempted to link her situation to the plight of others facing foreclosure, and said the experience would help make her a better advocate on foreclosure issues.  "I think this is what many Americans are unfortunately facing right now," she told the Daily Breeze. "I am concerned that I can take what I have learned from this to help somebody else. Many people are one step away from issues that are life-changing moments. When a person moves across the country, that is a life-changing moment."

Previous Richardson coverage:

May 21: A.P. reports Richardson delinquent on $8,950 in taxes

May 22: Report: Lender "took a beating" on Richardson home

May 22: Buyer of Richardson house says she "walked away"

May 23: Richardson seen as a "virtual shoo-in" for re-election

May 23: Richardson says foreclosure of her home was "improper"

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com

Comments

[shockg]

Laker said:Richardson is purely a RE speculator. She was in the process of flipping houses but obviously bought at the peak."

Look at the pot calling the kettle black. Laker, You are also Purely a RE speculator. Does the fact that you also bought and sold to profit from market fluctuations make you any different?? I think not. get off your high-horse. You are not only a disgusting speculator but a liar too. Apparently she took your advice of not living up to her commitments and just walk away. Great self-serving advice loser!

[Raul]

Give a break to the Lady, She represent the best among us. She is competitive, greedy and power hungry. Thats what We call a winner. She is a risk taker, just like the leaders in our financial institutions. Our leaders want to make it "Big", they want to make "History".For Her it is not enough to be our leader, She wants to own the whole State.

[Laker]

shockg, you're saying that I'm the same as Rep Richardson (D)???
I never took liar loans, never got 100% loans, never got $15,000 cash back from sellers, NEVER got paid by the NAR, never got free airline tickets to their shows, never bought investment houses...ALWAYS paid my taxes, never evaded them.
SHOCKG, you are disgusting realtor smelling loser.
I never lied about anything, but you are doing that on every post. You never contribute any info here but spit dirt on others.
Did you get your notice of trustee sale already????
disgusting bankrupt RE realtard.

[Jack]

Michael Snyder, when you're done making your hat, could you please put the roll of tinfoil back in the drawer by the fridge? Thanks.

[SDN]

Hey, Jack, care to guess who would have been FIRST in line to sue the lender for illegal housing / lending discrimination if the lender had turned her whiny self down or even asked tough questions? Repeal the laws that force lenders to lend to every so called minority regardless of credit history and you can complain about the "stupid greedy lenders"; until then, have a heaping helping of STFU.

[Michael Snyder]

Jack,
Stenson made my hat. It fits on my head because of my vertical alignment and the lack of interference from my rectum. You might want to try a similar prospective.

[yochanan]

my congresscriter's hubby went to federal prison for tax fraud, funny they filed a joint tax return how come she did not join him.

[Tex Lovera]

Jimmy (is that Carter?)-

Methinks your post must be tongue-in-cheek.

If not, you are truly doltish.

[redherkey]

Rep. Richardson (party unknown) is an inspiration. She conned evil corporations into three loans, bulked up further on debt leveraged by the home "equity," screwed the taxpayers of California by filing for housing stipends only to pocket the money, and now dumps the entire mess on the corporations and taxpayers.

While ambitious for a freshman Congresswoman, she's a symbol of Congress's greater practices. Bulk up on pork, stick it to taxpayers and corporations (and ultimately its shareholders, which again means you people with retirement savings, pensions, 401Ks, etc), outspend unsustainable record tax inflows, get trillions in loans from China, the Middle East, and then start dumping the currency when it's apparent you have no control and capacity to repay. Default is around the corner.

Of course, again, the taxpayers, lower and middle class, etc. get screwed. Who cares though? Both parties are of the rich special interests. The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats are big enough fools to believe their party isn't corrupt to its core by fat-cat special interests.

Hopefully Rep. Richardson (party unknown) has maintained payments on her overseas vacation home, so she has a refuge to go to when the U.S. collapses from Congress's mess.

[Uncle Billy]

"Repeal the laws that force lenders to lend to every so called minority regardless of credit history "

This doesn't sound right at all. Please provide the requisite references.

[OLDPUPPYMAX]

The woman is a bum. Period. Anybody remember Ray Lewis and his slight problem paying for a dozen or so cars? The real question is, who in the the hell keeps giving her loans and why? Are they intimidated by her power/race? It would be very interesting to find out.

[CD]

This info is not about taking Laker or Michael Snyder down , it is about getting that thief Richardson and getting more like her out of office, how do we proceed now, today, letters to the attorney general,
letters to the head of congress, lets do something ....We must show them all that we know what bunch of crooks they all are and act up.....

[xray]

The outrage is she stole from people. She signed a paper that said she would pay the value of the loan. She took tremendous risk in buying three homes, but wants to now put all of the financial cost on those people lending her the money for the homes. That is theft and she should be in jail, not congress.

[Willys]

Congress... 535 (minus one or two) reasons to NEVER vote for an incumbent.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

It's a sad day for America when one of our representatives can not afford the immunized Westside and has to resort to flipping three houses simultaneously to acheive her dream.

Congrees should look to corporate America and seriously think about paying our hard working congress-men and -women, our finest, dignified wages...like $1 million a year so we don't have to see this kind of embarassment ever again!

[househunting]

OK,

This is not her finest hour and this is a woman who definitely has problems. Most likely she will lose her seat. Anyone want to run against her?

But let's keep things in perspective. She did not lie her country into a war. Her actions did not kill thousands. She did not illegally wiretap anyone, out a CIA agent, and she was not on watch when 9-11 happened... etc. etc...

I am surprised at the number of people who care about what she did in her private life, when there are alot of things wrong with this country MUCH more serious than this story.

[Duke of Moral Hazard]

Where did Dan go? The Dan Richardson that appears in recorded documents with Laura Richardson. And what is all the title activity? Was the same Laura involved in other property in sacramento going back to 2002??? Here's what prompts the question: If you go to the Sac. County Recorder website and search Laura Richardson you get one page of results.

http://www.erosi.saccounty.net/Inputs.asp

8/02: Grant deed: Laura J & Daniel W ----> Laura & Daniel

8/02: Trust deed: Laura & Daniel -----> ABN Amro

12/03: Trust deed: Laura & Daniel ------> Cal Direct / Gmac / Mers (more about mers later)

1/04: Substitution: Laura & Daniel -----> Laura & Daniel

1/04: Reconveyance

4/05: Grant Deed: Laura & Daniel -------> Nancy & Phillip G.

4/05: Grant Deed: Patricia Buckley -------> Laura & Daniel

4/05: Trust Deed: Laura & Dan --------> Loancity & mers

5/05: Substitution Tr: Laura & Daniel

5/05: Reconveyance: Laura & Daniel

6/06: Trust Deed: Laura & Daniel ------> Keypoint Cr. Union

1/07: Grant Deed: Laura & Daniel

1/07 Trust Deed: Laura & Daniel -----------> Home123 & Mers

1/07 Grant Deed: Helmers Trust -------> Laura Richardson

1/07: Trust Deed: Laura ---------> Wamu

1/07: Substitution Tr: Laura & Dan ---------> Laura & Dan

1/07: Reconveyance: Laura & Dan

2/07: Reconveyance: Laura & Daniel

12/07 Notice of Default: ***just*** Laura

So, so many questions. Are these the same Dans and Lauras going all the way back to 2002? Didn't she get up to the assembly just in 2006?

And what happened to Dan, Daniel? How come he didn't get the NOD along with Laura. Just recording oversights? It looks like there's another house or two involved here if we're talking about the same Dan & Laura the whole way through. How come she didn't tell us about those ones too? C'mon Laura, just tell us the whole story from beginning to end with no little omissions along the way. And what's with the substitutions where it looks like the names weren't really changed? What was substituted?

Now get out the tin foil.. this part is interesting too.

After I searched for Laura and Dan and Daniel Richardson and found the above info... I went back to double check a few things about an hour later. Now, when I search "Laura Richardson," instead of getting the above info, I get a message that says: "No results for Laura Richardson."

When I search for Daniel now, same thing: "No results found." But when I search "Dan" I get 8 hits for "Dan Richards Real Est" between 2000 and 2008.

So the database changed while I was working on it???
Recorder's Office in Sacramento... is this possible?

There's a "Daniel Warren Richardson" (Daniel W.) registered as a salesperson in Antioch, CA. Is this our man? Certainly could be... it's spitting distance from Sacramento. There's a Dan Richardson Real Estate in Carmichael, which looks like a suburb of Sacramento.

I'll leave it to better minds to sort it out.

The weirdness with the database happened around 6-7 p.m. pst today, 26th of May.

[E]

Sorry Househunting.

You are absolutely right.

In fact, I even forgot that we were at war.

Silly me.

BTW...what ever happened to that girl Katrina in New Orleans? Did they ever find her?

And I don't know what 7-11 has to do with anything although I do think that they need a larger "tub-o-soda" to go with my pork rinds.

[Uncle Billy Climbs Mont Pelerin]

Househunting:

We can't get at the really bad ones easily. Protected too well.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

I am surprised at the number of people who care about what she did in her private life, when there are alot of things wrong with this country MUCH more serious than this story. ---- Househunting.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

How can a congresswoman, with so many things wrong with this country, have time to flip houses?

A congresswomen.

We are not talking about a no-life internet blogger like you, me or Peter here. Her job is to work on those wrong things.

[Uncle Billy Climbs Mont Pelerin]

Ok, you can put the tinfoil away. The searches produce fine results on sac county site if you put the first and last names in the right fields.

[Duke of Moral Hazard]

Missed a couple in the 90's as well in Sacramento County:

There was a Daniel W and Laura J here as well:

3/93: Grant Deed: Wincrest Homes -----> Laura J & Daniel W

3/93: Trust Deed: Laura J & Daniel W ------> GMAC

Are there commercial properties out there as well? Richardson specifically referred to a "residential" property in her statement. Was she being specific for a reason?

[Rainman]

Nice to see the Daily Breeze and others highlighting Richardson's financial problems and apparent shamelessness. Where were they when she was running for the Assembly or Congress?

[Uncle Billy Climbs Mont Pelerin]

Here it is, the kind of example we need out there in D.C: a bunch of congressmen all shacked up together in a little townhouse. Looks like fun actually.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/
garden/18roomies.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Bitter and Clingy]

So how is it Congresswoman Cant Count can get all these mortgages for properties in excess of her primary residence, and not be forced to sell one or more of them to pay off her debts?
Why is she being given such special treatment?
As as for moving across country being a life-changing moment, she had a choice. Many of us don't have that choice, yet are forced to deal with the life-changing moments anyway.
When are any legal officials going to be looking into this obvious fraud?