Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 8:26 AM
Who Dun It?
From today’s U-T (hat tip to Kwaping!):
ENCINITAS – After a high-profile foreclosure, the county’s largest and possibly most luxurious bank-owned home is missing an estimated $1 million worth of furnishings, from antique doors to top-of-the-line toilets.
So far, no suspect has been named in a grand theft investigation opened by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department in March.
“It’s like a car up on blocks,” Sheriff’s Detective Steven Ashkar said. “It’s been stripped.”
The 16,000-square-foot Spanish hacienda-style house on 1.24 acres is surrounded by trees on Fortuna Ranch Road in Encinitas.
Decorated with 300-year-old doors from Egypt, carved teak pillars from Antigua, stained-glass windows, crystal chandeliers and handmade tiles from Mexico, the home cost $13 million to build and furnish. In February, it failed to sell at a bank foreclosure auction with a starting bid of $2.3 million.
Suzy Brown, an electrical engineer who built the house, reluctantly surrendered title to the bank on Feb. 13 after not making payments for more than a year. She moved out March 22.
On March 26, Capital One Bank’s real estate agent, Katie Taylor, filed a police report citing missing “doors, windows, fixtures, toilets, windows, cabinets and appliances,” Ashkar said.
The house has been controversial since Brown obtained a construction permit in 2004. She originally planned to operate it as a drug-rehabilitation center in a venture with alternative medicine physician Deepak Chopra and 60 unnamed investors.
Neighbors dubbed it the “monster house” because of its size, and complained that Brown intended a commercial venture in a residential area. They sued Brown and filed a complaint with the state Department of Corporations. While both ultimately were dismissed, construction was delayed and the Chopra Center dropped out.
The City Council tightened its zoning rules, preventing Brown from operating a rehab center or renting the home for events once it was finished in 2006.
Brown rented out some of the rooms to as many as 12 people at a time, she said.
As for who stole the furnishings, Brown said she doesn’t know.
She said she tried to secure the property by renting chain-link fencing, installing locks and pleading with the bank to hire a guard.
“The whole thing saddens me, but I’m also very frustrated,” Brown said, “because I’ve never screamed as loud or forewarned as much in person, through voice mail messages, through numerous e-mail messages, how likely a target this property was.”
“As I told the detective, this has been all over the news; what does the bank expect?”
Taylor did not return calls for comment.
Ashkar said he’s interviewed potential witnesses including Brown, her roommates and neighbors.
“I’ve been talking to quite a few people about it, and there’s a lot of speculation,” he said. “The bank owned the property and whoever did this, it’s theft.”
FROM THE PREVIOUS ARTICLE IN FEBRUARY:
Meanwhile, Brown, who designed a sophisticated computer-controlled “brain” that operates the estate’s heating, lighting, air conditioning, audio-visual systems and security, says the home’s value will plummet if she is evicted and takes furnishings with her.
“I’ve shown the property to several prospective buyers, and no one wants it empty,” she says. “It takes the life, breath and soul out of it.”
Despite having lost a fortune on the project, she is trying to keep a positive attitude and remains willing to work with the bank and with new buyers.
Posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 8:26 AM in Foreclosures, Local Flavor | 26 Comments » | 
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Didn’t she also say in that previous article that she was going to rip the HVAC system controls out of the house because she designed them?
NC | April 7th, 2009 at 8:39 amI don’t see this as a surprise. There must have been a ‘wink-wink’ agreement between some if not all of the parties involved.
3clicks from da Beach | April 7th, 2009 at 8:42 amPseudo-rich gaming the system and I’m just sitting here with my 20% cash down waiting for a reasonably priced property to become available.
Banks lose 500k to 1mill trying to dump a property like this. Then fight tooth and nail for 50k on a sub 500k property. It doesn’t make sense.
I’m convinced that the upper management of banks have literally NO IDEA what they’re doing. Good thing my tax dollars will keep their stupidity train rolling strong.
shadash | April 7th, 2009 at 8:43 amI always wondered the specific legality of what one can and can’t remove from a house in a foreclosure. Is anything bolted down automatically part of the house? That is, let’s say I buy a house with a loan. I then seperately purchase and install something in the house (an appliance or something similar). Then I stop making payments on the home loan, and it gets foreclosed upon. I would think I would be perfectly justified in removing said appliance, since it wasn’t there when I took out the loan and I paid for it seperately. Now, if the appliance came with the house when I bought it with the loan, I would think it would have to stay.
Geotpf | April 7th, 2009 at 8:48 amIf it’s attached to the house at time of sale, it stays. If sellers have things they want to take, they should remove them prior to letting a buyer tour the home.
It is a regular wresting match, especially in the higher-end well-appointed homes. Once in escrow the sellers start realizing how much they love that xxx and just have to take it with them, but sorry – it stays.
In this crazy case, if she took everything out prior to the trustee sale, she might get away with it, but then there is also the clause in every loan about destruction of the property being illegal.
Jim the Realtor | April 7th, 2009 at 8:51 amSo, she could completely strip the house prior to turning it over on Feb 13 (or maybe March 22) and it would be legal?
Geotpf | April 7th, 2009 at 9:03 amSomething I missed in the original article: the police interviewed Brown’s roommates.
She went from a 16,000 sq ft, $23MM mansion in Encinitas to living with roommates? Harsh. But then again, that storage unit must be huge.
Kwaping | April 7th, 2009 at 9:56 amThe bank loans paid for the furnishings. So I don’t see how it becomes legal if she ripped them out before trustee’s sale.
W.C. Varones | April 7th, 2009 at 9:58 amKwaping-The article also says she rented out rooms in the mansion to as many as twelve people at a time. I imagine those are the “roommates” in question, since it looks like she was also living at the house.
Heck, calling this a “house” is understating things a bit. It’s about the size of a good sized motel or apartment complex, and was apparently designed for group living in mind when it was going to be some sort of new age-y drug treatment facility.
Geotpf | April 7th, 2009 at 10:41 amGee, I wonder who could’ve done it?
What a dumb criminal she is.
Todd | April 7th, 2009 at 11:33 amI’ve always used this rule of thumb:
Fixtures.
If you can unplug it and carry it away then it isn’t “fixed.” If you need a tool then it is “fixed.”
Oh, and anything that leaves a “hole” behind is a fixture.
Rob Dawg | April 7th, 2009 at 11:58 amA substantial part of the home’s value is in these furnishings in making the loan, so I’d think that’s part of the collateral if it’s physically attached to the house. Especially with things like doors and windows – we’re not talking about some ready-to-move appliances here.
It’s worth noting many of the things like the 300-year old wood is going to lose the majority of its value if put on the black market. Yeah, she’s not the brightest criminal.
sdbri | April 7th, 2009 at 12:02 pmThis is happening like crazy all over the country. Here in Atlanta, foreclosed homes in our ritzy Buckhead neighborhood have been hit several times.
The banks have simply walked away from this, the police are overwhelmed with other issues and the previous owners, like this one, are saying not my problem.
And Jim Cramer says we’ve hit bottom? That man is crazier than the people who gave this woman the loan to build that disaster waiting to happen.
Consultant | April 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pm“I’m convinced that the upper management of banks have literally NO IDEA what they’re doing.”
Shadash, Oh the upper management knows exactly what it’s doing. It’s called fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. And if we were still a nation of laws, scores of people would be going to prison for this.
I’ll be curious to see the national reaction to the motion picture, Public Enemies, when it opens in July. A massive crime erupted in the early part of the Depression, producing a whole crop of soon to be famous bank robbers-Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillenger, Machine Gun Kelly, etc.
The point is, people back then got mad as hell at the obvious thievery of the banks, and the more violent among them took to robbing banks. Some of them were looked upon as modern day Robin Hoods. The big difference then was authorities went after them, and, they went after the bankers who caused the whole mess.
Today, we still arrest the petty bank robbers, but the big boys on Wall St. and at Bank of America, so far we’re still letting them rob banks (i.e. the American tax payer).
Consultant | April 7th, 2009 at 12:19 pmJim, I’m going to disagree with you a bit there. Typically, a sales contract will involve a list of what’s in and what isn’t. While it certianly is a default rule that fixtures stay, if that light I hung is from my grandmother and I want to take it, that’s in the contract. Common coutresty and most sales contracts would usually dictate that you would repace a true fixture, so the buyer doesn’t just get empty wires.
So, here in a foreclosure, there’s no sales contract, just the loan documents. Now desctuction is one thing (this house, the “barbie house” in Chula Vista), but where’s the line? What if she bought a free standing wine chiller and took that? Seems reasonable. Kitchen sink/tile back splash/columns? Not so reasonable. As a complicating factor, if she really designed the heating/cooling system, that’s her intellectual property. So, even if the computer interfaces, thermostats, etc. are fixtures, if the underlying technlogy is her own, the bank doesn’t get the technology. The bank would conceivably have to pay her for a license to use it (which of course they wouldn’t do). Using the light analogy above, if she pulled the system out and and replaced it with a standard thermostat, then that would be consistent with the spirit of standard negotiated deals.
But, I would agree taking doors, windows, etc. and not replacing them would be destruction rather than reasonable taking of personal property.
Former RB Resident | April 7th, 2009 at 12:33 pmActually this case is very different because she got a loan from the bank to *build and furnish* the house. I doubt the bank let her spend money willy nilly on furnishings without laying a claim to it in case of default. “Here’s 13 million dollars for the house and furnishings, if you default we’ll just take the house.” Don’t think so.
sdbri | April 7th, 2009 at 12:48 pmMost thiat follow this site seem to conclude that upgrades don’t add any value to a home in today’s market–therefore, no harm-no foul!
Local Boy | April 7th, 2009 at 1:12 pmFound her engineering thesis!!
PREDICTION OF PARAMETRIC BASED FINAL TEST
FALLOUT USING NEIGHBORHOOD ANALYSIS by SUZY M. BROWN, B.S.
http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-06272008-31295019156834/unrestricted/31295019156834.pdf
Dan | April 7th, 2009 at 4:52 pmGuess I’m a little slow on math. The house couldn’t garner $2.3m with fixtures, but the present value of the absconded doors, windows and toilets are $1m?
Perhaps the neighbors will chip in the remaining $1.3 and the rest of this extended comedy can disappear into the shadows as well.
Mike_S | April 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pmHaha.. Posted in the article’s comments:
I’ve received some e-mails from readers who are interested in exactly what Suzy Brown threatened to do before she moved out of the house. To clarify, Suzy never said she was going to take the fixtures – the doors, windows and cabinets – but she did say that she’d remove the custom computer system that runs the house. Since she designed the software, it’s her intellectual property. The bank apparently agreed that she could take the computer system since it wasn’t reported as “missing” in the official police report. I hope this helps clarify the story. Thank you so much for your comments and interest!
Sincerely, Tanya Mannes, U-T staff writer
Replied by
Diane Bell wrote that Ms. Brown planned on taking all of the “furnishings” out of the house. Now, not only your headline writer, but you in your article, used the term “furnishings” to refer to things like “antique doors,” which were reported stolen. Most people don’t consider doors to be “furnishings,” but your headline writer and you do (in your article, but not in your comment, where you use the term “fixtures).
So, who’s to say that Ms. Brown doesn’t oddly refer to doors and windows as “furnishings,” just like people at the U-T do??
Replied by writer:
Dan | April 7th, 2009 at 5:04 pmThanks for pointing out our oversight. I’m not perfect, just trying to do my job.
Tanya Mannes
Somewhat off topic, but someone sent me these jokes today:
1. What’s the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las Vegas and an investment banker? A tie!
2. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left side nothing’s right and on the right side nothing’s left.
3. I want to warn people from Nigeria, if you get any emails from Washington asking for money… It’s a scam. Don’t fall for it.
4. What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my checks is returned stamped “insufficient funds,” I won’t know whether that refers to mine or the bank’s.
Dwip | April 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pmI remember in the listing, besides the fancy thermostat controls, it had all these card-key-controlled room doors, etc. I would suspect there had to be some kind of security system–why wouldn’t the bank just have rolled that over to themselves? Or was it all tied into her proprietary control system? If so then maybe the bank really was neglient to “leave it bare.”
Yet, it does sound awfully suspicious that she lamented how invaluable the furnishings were to the property and now they’ve gone missing….
shoppingaround | April 8th, 2009 at 12:21 amYeah, when she said “furnishings” she might have meant “furniture” and not “doors, cabinets, windows, and appliances”. She might have been saying “This won’t sell empty”, which is a common statement from realtors and why people sometimes stage houses with furniture and stuff.
Geotpf | April 8th, 2009 at 7:39 amNo bids at $2.3 mil? Wow! I’m surprised no one scooped that up and converted it into a big home. Must not be very suitable for it (e.g., space is broken up all wrong).
Wonder what future lies ahead for this thing. Which is, BTW, about 1/4 mile from where I’m building.
Aztec | April 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pmI wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that the SD DA and Feds are on this. Hope the perp enjoys the decor of barbed wire and windows bars in the new casa.
Diane | April 9th, 2009 at 3:20 pmI think its obvious she took the stuff.
Tom Tarrant | April 12th, 2009 at 3:40 pm