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Phoenix, Arizona • (602) 234-1999
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Youth Garden Allows Children to Sow Seeds and Build Character
| Watch the video online to see attorney Samuel Kelsall in a collective partnership project with Keys Garden and Valley Presbyterian Church. |
by: J. Craig Anderson of Arizona Republic on October 11, 2009.
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Home-foreclosure activity has spilled across every geographic and socioeconomic border this year, proving that no community was too cautious, clever or well-funded to remain unscathed.
Subprime lending gave the home-foreclosure crisis its initial push, but the problem could not have reached existing proportions without feeding on a host of broader economic problems, according to real-estate experts responding to the latest Valley Home Values data, provided by Information Market.
"It has nothing to do with the value of the home," said Mike Wasmann, president of the Arizona Association of Realtors. "It has to do with people not having any money."
The foreclosure rate has accelerated in more centrally located, often pricier neighborhoods while slowing down a bit in newer, more remote communities where the foreclosure floodgate burst in late 2007.
Job losses, salary cuts, unpaid work furloughs and failed investments were among the contributors to home foreclosures in communities with few first-time buyers and little subprime-lending activity, Valley real- estate analysts said.
They also pointed to home-equity loans as a major cause of foreclosures in older, more established neighborhoods, noting that many residents of those areas who face foreclosure today owed very little on their mortgages before the appearance of equity emboldened them to borrow against the home's value.
"A lot of people got hung out to dry on homes that they've had for a long time because they refinanced," said Jay Butler, Arizona State University professor and realty studies director.
Role reversal
The ZIP code 85007 in central Phoenix, which houses more than its share of Arizona bluebloods and political insiders, was largely unaffected by area foreclosure activity in 2008, even as neighboring ZIP codes saw home values lopped in half.
But this year, the median home price in 85007 collapsed, falling 76.5 percent in the first eight months, according to analysis by The Arizona Republic using data from the Phoenix-based Information Market.
Median home-price comparisons only examine changes in value among homes that were bought and sold during the comparison period. They do not indicate the median value of all homes in the area.
Phoenix was the biggest overall home-value loser in 2009, with the city's median home price dropping from $229,000 to $82,000 between September 2008 and Aug. 31.
A year earlier, Phoenix was among the best-performing Valley cities and towns, with a one-year median home-price drop of about 15 percent.
In contrast, Queen Creek experienced a much steeper decline of nearly 24 percent from September 2007 to August 2008. In the past 12 months, the decline has eased to slightly more than 9 percent.
Queen Creek homes have held more value than even the mansions of Paradise Valley, according to sales data. The Valley's most expensive community posted its first double-digit, one-year drop in median sale price since before the housing boom.
However, Paradise Valley is still the breakaway winner in a survey of median-home prices in Maricopa County over the past five years. No other community could touch its five-year median price increase of more than 56 percent, from September 2004 to August 2009.
Outlying ZIP codes generally have seen home values begin to level, while price drops in more centrally located ZIP codes have gathered momentum.
Foreclosure activity also has shifted toward the urban center, Valley Home Values figures show.
For example, less than half of this year's home-sales transactions in Queen Creek have involved foreclosures, while they have accounted for at least 60 percent of sales in most Phoenix residential areas.
Not every local housing market changed dramatically this year, according to the data.
Tempe and Scottsdale housing markets have enjoyed two consecutive years of relative stability, while El Mirage and Glendale have suffered relatively high foreclosure rates and sharp price declines two years in a row.
Local experts offered a variety of theories to explain the reversals, but they share a common theme: Foreclosures are becoming a bigger problem for the upper-middle class and even the previously wealthy.
One reason is loss of income, they said, especially among those households in which the primary source of wealth was real estate. But the threat of luxury-home foreclosure has not been limited to residents with stalled careers in home building and property sales, experts said.
Jumbo problem
In some respects, higher-priced neighborhoods have been playing catch-up with the less expensive areas, where rapid-fire foreclosures first began around late 2007.
Butler said the foreclosure wave appears to have run its course in starter-home communities such as Buckeye and Queen Creek.
"You sort of run out of things you can foreclose on," he said.
It's far less clear where the Valley is overall in terms of working through troubled "jumbo" mortgage loans, which are difficult to refinance because they are too large to secure a government guarantee of repayment. It's likely foreclosures on more-expensive homes - those priced above the Federal Housing Administration limit of $346,000 - will take longer to purge from the housing market, in part because they will be much harder for lenders to sell.
Butler said he expects to see another post-holiday foreclosure surge in early 2010 that undoubtedly will include more high-end homes.
He pointed to the surge in foreclosures in February - about 4,300, a record at the time - as evidence that struggling homeowners had resolved to make it through the holiday season before ceasing payment.
Butler said many households have lost any financial cushion they might have once had, which means even the slightest financial setback could lead to foreclosure.
"Those that stretched their income to get the home, they're in trouble," he said.
Crystal Wright of Dallas-based auctioneer Hudson & Marshall said her company is handling far fewer properties for Phoenix-area lenders than it did a year ago, but the quality and condition of the homes it does handle are generally better.
Lately, banks are foreclosing on the sort of home that might belong to a doctor or a lawyer, Wright said.
"Now it's prime mortgages that are involved," she said.
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Scam Alert: House Stealing With Forged Deeds a Fast Growing and Easy Scam
by: Sid Kirchheimer | Source: From the AARP Bulletin print edition | July 1, 2009
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Teresa Bidwell learned that her house had been stolen when contractors she hired to make minor renovations found another crew already there—and much of the Philadelphia row home gutted.
“My guys called me to ask if I had hired other contractors,” says the 45-year-old business owner. “I hadn’t.”
Instead, her property had been sold for just $5,000, and the new “owner” hired the unexpected workmen. “Unknown to me, the deed was transferred to her name, and she had that as proof I had ‘sold’ it,” Bidwell told the AARP Bulletin. Her signature had been forged. “I spent more than one year, $16,000 and a lot of hassles to get back my house.”
House stealing: easier than you might think
House stealing is a fast-growing and easy scam. Once a home is targeted—vacant ones are preferred, but occupied residences are also vulnerable—scammers find out who owns it by searching public records.
“When I went to City Hall, there were maybe 20 people in the deed recorder’s office, using its computers to research properties owned by those who, like me, live outside the city. When I told the clerk, ‘I’m here because my house was stolen,’ they scattered like cockroaches,” Bidwell says.
Armed with property records, crooks can then purchase $10 property transfer forms at any office supply store. The signatures of “sellers” are forged, and paperwork is filed with the city or county recorder’s office. In many states, deed recorders and those who oversee property closings are not required to authenticate the identities of buyers or sellers. Some crooks simply create fake IDs, stealing the real homeowner’s identity.
With a newly issued deed, stolen homes are sometimes sold, as in Bidwell’s case, for a fraction of their worth to cash-paying buyers (who are also scammed). But more often, hijacked homes are used as collateral to get new loans.
Lenders are more likely to issue new loans to homeowners with no existing mortgage. “The elderly are most often targeted because they usually don’t have a mortgage,” says Molly Butters of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.
To prove how easy this scam is, William Sherman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Daily News in New York, bought the Empire State Building with doctored documents. “After downloading the correct existing deed, I transferred it from its rightful owners to my own phony company, Nelots (“stolen” spelled backward) Properties LLC, using paperwork I bought at Staples,” he told the Bulletin. “It took about 90 minutes, and the next day the property was mine, according to the New York Register’s office.” Sherman promptly “returned” the landmark skyscraper.
How do you protect your own home?
- From time to time, check all property records with your local deed recorder or register’s office to ensure all documents and signatures are legitimate.
- If you receive a payment book or other information about a loan that isn’t yours, “whether your name is on the envelope or not, don’t just throw it away,” advises the FBI website. “Open it, and follow up with the company that sent it.”
- Some deed-recording offices use software that alerts homeowners whenever a transfer is made on their property. If yours doesn’t, ask why not.
- If you discover your home has been stolen, immediately report it to your district attorney or state attorney general’s office.
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by: Frank Greve of McClatchy Newspapers on May 22, 2009
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WASHINGTON - When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald's recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There's nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was a big chunk of the $9.50 he had earned that day from panhandling.
The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.
"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major non-profit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."
Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.
The figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.
None of the middle fifths of America's households, in contrast, gave away as much as 3 percent of their incomes.
"As a rule, people who have money don't know people in need," said Tanya Davis, 40, a laid-off security guard and single mother.
Certainly, better-off people aren't hit up by friends and kin as often as Davis said she was, having earned a reputation for generosity while she was working.
Now getting by on $110 a week in unemployment insurance and $314 a month in welfare, Davis still fields two or three appeals a week, she said, and lays out $5 or $10 weekly.
To explain her giving, Davis offered the two reasons most commonly heard in three days of conversations with low-income donors:
"I believe that the more I give, the more I receive, and that God loves a cheerful giver," Davis said. "Plus, I've been in their position, and someday I might be again."
Herbert Smith, 31, a Seventh-day Adventist who said he tithed his $1,010 monthly disability check - giving away 10 percent of it - thought that poor people give more because, in some ways, they worry less about their money.
"We're not scared of poverty the way rich people are," he said.
"We know how to get the lights back on when we can't pay the electric bill."
In terms of income, the poorest fifth seem unlikely benefactors. Their pretax household incomes averaged $10,531 in 2007, according to the BLS survey, compared with $158,388 for the top fifth.
In addition, its members are the least educated fifth of the U.S. population, the oldest, the most religious and the likeliest to rent their homes, according to demographers. They're also the most likely fifth to be on welfare, to drive used cars or rely on public transportation, to be students, minorities, women and recent immigrants.
However, many of these characteristics predict generosity. Women are more generous than men, studies have shown. Older people give more than younger donors with equal incomes. The working poor, disproportionate numbers of which are recent immigrants, are America's most generous group, according to Arthur Brooks, the author of the book "Who Really Cares," an analysis of U.S. generosity.Faith probably matters most, Brooks - who's the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington policy-research organization - said in an interview. That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and those who attend church give more money than non-attenders to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.
What makes poor people's generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn't tax-deductible, because they don't earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions.
In effect, giving a dollar to charity costs poor people a dollar while it costs deduction itemizers 65 cents.
In addition, measures of generosity typically exclude informal giving, such as that of Davis' late mother, Helen Coleman. Coleman, a Baltimore hotel housekeeper, provided child care, beds and meals for many of her eight children and 32 grandchildren, Davis said.
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by: Drew Engelbart of Arizona Republic on February 13, 2009
| A Phoenix woman was arrested and booked on suspicion of getting access to a neighbor's bank accounts and title of the home to pay bills and buy a car.
Peggy Moore, 68, Dean of Students at Metro Tech High School in Phoenix, was arrested on suspicion of 10 counts of theft from a vulnerable adult, 10 counts of unlawful use of power of an attorney, and one count of fraudulent schemes. The arrest is not connected to the school.
Moore is accused of using power of attorney to gain access to bank accounts and withdraw money from an elderly woman, according to a court document. Moore also quit claimed the elderly woman's home, which was valued at $172,000, changing the title over to Moore.
The elderly woman lived next door to Moore. According to court documents, Moore convinced the neighbor to allow Moore to manage the neighbor's finances after the death of the neighbor's husband.
The neighbor's health deteriorated and in October 2006 she was "mentally incompetent to understand what the suspect was doing with her money and/or her home," according to the document.
Beginning in 2007, Moore is accused of using the withdrawn money to pay her own bills and purchase a Mercedes sedan and a Lincoln Navigator, for a total of $59,000. These vehicles were titled in Moore's name and then sold to buy a Lexus for $35,000.
Moore was sued in civil court by the victim's family and ordered to return the money, vehicles and the victim's home back into her name. Moore agreed to return the home but refused to return the money or vehicles, and filed for bankruptcy, according to the document.
Moore told police that because she had power of attorney for the victim she had the right to use the money "as she saw fit," according to the court document. She declined interview by the police.
Phoenix Union High School District officials said the matter had no connection to the school.
"What she is charged with is not related to students or to the school district," said Craig Pletenik, a Phoenix Union spokesperson. "It had nothing to do with school district funding."
Moore has been the Dean of Students at Metro Tech since 2003 and is in charge of student discipline.
Moore worked in the Phoenix Union High School District for nearly three decades. Before she became a school administrator at Metro Tech, and formerly at Camelback High School, she taught special education.
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by: Laurie Roberts of Arizona Republic on February 4, 2009
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R.B. Sleeth will turn 80 years old this Friday and I know just the gift for him - if only a judge will take five minutes out of his busy schedule to offer it.
Let the man go home.
"I want to go home, and then Marge and I are going to get married," R.B. told me. "I want to get my life back together again. I essentially have no life, Laurie, living like this."
When you're 80, every moment should be precious. Instead, R.B. feels like a prisoner, held captive by a son who claims good intentions and a judge who has until recently supported that son's actions - including a 10-week stint in a lockdown Alzheimer's ward in Scottsdale.
I wrote about R.B. in December. How the retired Armour Foods executive - who, by the way, doesn't have Alzheimer's - met Marge Foley in 2003, when she was nanny to his son's children. How R.B. and Marge fell in love and eventually planned to marry. How his son interrupted their wedding in December 2007 and got a judge to name him his father's guardian.
How he vowed in court papers that he just wanted what's best for his father, which in his view meant severing all contact between R.B. and the 73-year-old woman he loves, firing his father's attorney and letting him live out his days in a "high-end quality assisted-living residential setting, with the level of care and supervision commensurate with his needs and requirements."
Which, for 10 weeks in late 2008, meant locking him up with people who don't even know their names. Court records suggest that R.B. has some short-term memory issues and needs a little help, as many older people do. But he's a far cry from needing to be locked up.
Several dozen of R.B.'s friends, including former Gov. Rose Mofford and the minister who was to marry the couple, were horrified. They went to court to ask that a new guardian, a neutral party, be named. Meanwhile, R.B.'s attorney, Tom Asimou, asked that R.B. be allowed to use some of his own money, which his son controls, on a mental evaluation, to determine if he's competent to marry.
On Dec. 30, Commissioner Richard Nothwehr issued a bizarre, 10-page ruling that suggests he might have a few short-term memory issues of his own. (For example, he writes that "the court does find that the complete prohibition of Marge and R.B. meeting was appropriate." Three sentences later, he says, "A complete prohibition was not warranted, however.")
He wrote that both Marge and Mark, R.B.'s son, have at times acted against R.B.'s best interests but he was generally sympathetic to Mark, even supporting the son's decision to put his father into a lockdown unit, which Nothwehr called "no different than any current, modern assisted-living home."
In the end, Nothwehr ruled that R.B. doesn't need another mental exam. He can marry Marge, Nothwehr said, and a new guardian will be appointed. More than a month later, however, Nothwehr still hasn't named that guardian and so R.B. remains in an assisted-living center.
It's a nice enough place. He can come and go, at least. But it's not home and, more than anything, R.B. wants to go home. He believes a new guardian will let him return to his house in Paradise Valley where he can live with Marge Foley, who, by the way, visits him every day.
He's 80, you see, and he's not done yet. He wants Marge and a dog and, well, a full life here in America, where everybody has rights, even the elderly.
"I've been sitting in a room like this for a year, wasting away, wasting my life away," R.B. told me a few days ago. "I'm not going to be around a whole lot longer. I'm 80 years old. Hopefully I've got another 20 but you never know. There's just so many things I want to do. There's so many places I want to take Marge. I dreamed while I was still working how nice it would be to have a very happy and enjoyable retirement, to be happy and go where I wanted and do what I wanted, that I'd be a free man. I'm not a free man. I'm not a free person."
But he could be.
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by: Dennis Wagner of Arizona Republic on January 22, 2009
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Patricia J. English is very much alive, but that hasn't stopped her kids from squabbling over who gets the 78-year-old Scottsdale woman's house when she passes away.
In a Maricopa County Superior Court complaint that could break legal ground in Arizona, Robert Jaeger says his brothers and sisters persuaded their mom to revise her Will to cut him out. He is seeking more than $1 million in punitive and compensatory damages, far more than English's home is worth.
Legal Experts and advocates for the elderly say the case could further erode the rights of older Americans, who face increasing challenges to their independence.
"Its rampant, and its usually done by sibling rivalries" said Carole Herman, president and founder of an advocacy group known as Foundation Aiding the Elderly. "It's all about money."
Kathy Cubit, director of advocacy at the Philadelphia-based Center for the Rights of and Interests of the Elderly, agreed that such quarrels are common.
"Family disagreements about the care and treatment of older loved ones are common, and when there is an 'expected inheritance' the outcome may not always be in the best interest of the older adult," she said in an e-mail.
Arizona law is silent on the issue of whether a person can be sued for interfering with an expected inheritance. A few states provide for such a tort, but only Maine and Florida allow claims while the estate owner is alive.
English, who is not a party in the lawsuit, blamed Jaeger, her eldest son, for the feud and said she wants nothing to do with him. "Its ridiculous and unnecessary and inexcusable" she said in an interview. "I'm not dead yet, and I don't plan on croaking soon... I intend to give my family hell."
Jeager did not respond to an interview request offered through his attorney. 'Pandora's box for senior citizens'
The Rev. Carl Ritter, a Dallas minister and one of the siblings Jaeger is suing, said his mom makes her own decisions and was not unduly influenced. English has no assets other than a house with $130,000 equity, he added, and legal fees will eat most of that if the case goes to trial.
"This is pandora's box for all senior citizens," Ritter said. "Nobody has the money to fight these situations. And if he (Jaeger) wins, that means any elderly person... can be stripped of assets before they die."
English, a widow, has eight children from three marriages. Including Jaeger, five of her offspring are parties in the case. Those siblings say the lawsuit culminates a family feud that erupted 22 months ago. Jaeger, 56, lived with his mom during much of the past seven years. In March 2007, after English became ill and underwent surgery, other members of the family grew concerned about her care at home.
Patti Westerman, a daughter who moved in with English after the operation, is among several siblings who say Jaeger sought to isolate and bully his mother.
English secured an order of protection against Jaeger, who was forced to move out of the residence. Scottsdale police charged him with violating the order in August 2007, but a judge dismissed the complaint and quashed the protective injunction.
During that time, English revised her Will. Jaeger, who had been listed as a sole beneficiary of the house, was written out. Four siblings replaced him as equal heirs. Defense cites improper influence
Jaeger alleges in his civil complaint that he spent years cooking, cleaning and tending to his mother. He claims she promised to leave the house to the child who looked after her. Jaeger's attorney, Harold Bliss, said he intends to show that siblings used improper influence.
English, however, said that she allowed Jaeger to move in when he was unemployed but that, over time, he became demanding, spent her money and failed to find work. "I got tired of supporting him" she said "I got tired of him telling me what to do."
In court filings, defense attorney Christopher Lonn argued that Jaeger can contest the Will in Probate Court after his mom's death if he believes there has been misconduct. Even if Arizona law permited estate challenges before death, Lonn noted, Jaeger failed to show any improper influence by his siblings. This month, Judge Bethany Hicks rejected Lonn's arguments, denying a motion for dismissal.
Hicks acknowledged that no similar case is on record in Arizona and agreed that the state's probate code does not sanction such a suit. However, she wrote, "that fact does not mean that the cause of action...was rejected by the Legislature."
The parties have been told to prepare for trial.
Herman, the advocate for the elderly, said probate law is tricky because some elderly adults may need protection after a stroke, dementia or senility.
However, she added, a competent living senior should not be subjected to court interference.
"This is a free country," Herman said. "She (English) can leave her property to whomever she wants. I question that judge's decision."
Mary Jo Quinn, director of the San Francisco Probate Department, said she has never heard of siblings carrying on an estate battle while the parent is alive and capable. She said English's only recourse is to defend her rights in court.
"Anybody can sue anybody," Quinn added. "The trick is, they have to prove it."
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