The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced it has filed charges and obtained a consented-to asset freeze against San Diego-based ANI Development LLC, its principal, Gina Champion-Cain, and a relief defendant, for operating a multi-year $300 million scheme that defrauded approximately 50 retail investors.
According to the SEC’s complaint, beginning in 2012, defendants fraudulently raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors by claiming to offer investors an opportunity to make short-term, high-interest loans to parties seeking to acquire California alcohol licenses. In truth, the SEC alleges, the investment opportunity was a sham. Contrary to defendants’ representations, the SEC asserts, defendants did not use investor funds to make loans to alcohol license applicants. Instead, Cain directed significant amounts of investor funds to a relief defendant that she controlled.
“The SEC took emergency action to stop what we allege is an egregious fraud,” said Los Angeles Regional Director Michele Wein Layne. “Importantly, the agreement we reached with the defendants to freeze their assets during the litigation will give investors the best chance to maximize their recovery going forward.”
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in San Diego on August 28, 2019, charges defendants with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933. Without admitting any violations of federal law, defendants have agreed to preliminary injunctions against violations of these provisions of the federal securities laws, asset freezes, and the appointment of a receiver over ANI and the relief defendant to marshal and preserve assets. The stipulated order is subject to court approval. The complaint seeks disgorgement of allegedly ill-gotten gains and prejudgment interest, monetary penalties, and permanent injunctions.
It’s inevitable that the amount of the commission paid by the seller to the buyer-agent will be made public.
Because the existing rules forbid the MLS companies from disclosing the commission amount to the public, it sounds like the consumer is being wronged. The lawsuits filed against major brokerages are building their case on the lack of transparency about that commission, and when they settle, it’s likely that this will be among the big wins for them – they got the buyer-agent commission disclosed to the public.
Let’s jump ahead.
Once revealed, the public will come to two conclusions about the buyer-agent’s commissions:
The vast majority of sellers offer a 2.5% commission/bounty/reward to buyer-agents to sell their house.
Effective September 1, 2019, weekends and court holidays will no longer count in calculating the time periods for the following tenant notices:
Notice to Pay Rent or Quit
Notice to Perform Covenant (Cure) or Quit
The five-day period in which a tenant has for filing an answer to an unlawful-detainer summons
Under existing law, when a tenant fails to pay rent on time or commits a curable breach of the lease the landlord may issue a three-day notice to pay rent or quit or a notice to perform covenant or quit. Currently, it is calendar days that are counted, which may include weekends or court holidays.
However, starting on September 1st the three days must exclude weekends and court holidays. For example, under the current law, a tenant who is given a three-day notice to pay rent or quit on a Friday would be required to pay by Monday. Under the law effective September 1st, Saturday and Sunday would not be counted towards the three days, so the tenant would have until Wednesday to pay.
The new law also applies to the five-day period that tenants have to respond to service of an unlawful detainer summons and complaint. A tenant served with an unlawful-detainer summons will now have five days excluding weekends and holidays to respond. The law does not impact the notice periods for 30 or 60-day termination notices, or notices based on uncurable breaches such as illegal use, unauthorized subletting, nuisance or waste.
Josh came down from Beverly Hills to round-trip the Razor house, which had sold for $14,097,000 in 2011. It closed yesterday for$20,800,000.
The previous sale did have some hair on it:
Public documents show what the new owner paid is lower than liens on the home, which totaled about $22.7 million. Burns, who expressed interest in the home about seven months ago, initially offered more than $16 million but in October dropped it to $13.9 million. He won out with his new bid after negotiations that resulted in concessions from some of the lienholders.
Here’s a sample of Burns’ negotiating skills in an Oct. 20 letter addressing Leslie Gladstone, the trustee in the Cooksey bankruptcy case:
“This new offer is lower than my first offer because the lack of other qualified buyer offers over the last months of heavy advertising proved that my past offer was above the Fair Market Value of the property,” he said.
Burns continued to say: “The First Mortgage Holder (Bank of America) will need to ultimately decide if it wishes to own this property, or if they would like to achieve their maximum recovery now and be free of the expense and liability of owning a property that has been the white elephant for four years.”
A court record dated Dec. 7 shows Gladstone agreed with Burns’ argument on the distressed home.
“This immediate relief is appropriate because Bank of America will foreclose on the Property if the sale does not close prior to December 31, 2011,” said Jeffry A. Davis, attorney for Gladstone.
The property, the work of renowned San Diego architectural designer Wallace E. Cunningham, is unfinished and has never been occupied. The new owner plans to work with Cunningham to complete the design.
The seller did install a kitchen, and staged it nicely – and included the photo above which helped disclose a possible annoyance with the property/location – you get the paragliders flying by:
Here is the Visa commercial that featured the home:
Our Case-Shiller Index did set a new record yesterday, but our Housing Bubble 2 is relatively tame – just 4% above the previous peak of 250.34 in November, 2005.
Compare to others like Seattle (+33% over last peak), San Francisco (+41%), and Denver (+59%) here:
Over the last few years, our Case-Shiller Index has dropped off towards the end of the year – but it has rebounded this year to make up for the Dip of 2H2018.
San Diego Non-Seasonally-Adjusted CSI changes:
Observation Month
SD CSI
M-o-M chg
Y-o-Y chg
January ’18
248.16
+0.8%
+7.3%
February
250.91
+1.1%
+7.5%
March
253.41
+1.0%
+7.6%
April
255.63
+0.9%
+7.7%
May
257.07
+0.6%
+7.3%
Jun
258.44
+0.6%
+6.9%
Jul
258.49
0.0%
+6.2%
Aug
257.32
-0.5%
+4.7%
Sept
256.13
-0.4%
+3.9%
Oct
255.26
-0.1%
+3.7%
Nov
253.37
-0.6%
+3.3%
Dec
251.68
-0.7%
+2.3%
January ’19
251.30
-0.2%
+1.3%
Feb
253.69
+0.9%
+1.1%
Mar
256.44
+1.1%
+1.2%
Apr
257.63
+0.5%
+0.8%
May
260.08
+1.0%
+1.2%
June
261.82
+0.7%
+1.3%
Frank says there is renewed activity in real estate:
It goes to show you that you don’t have to worry about under-pricing a home…..as long as you put it on the open market so every buyer gets a crack at it!
