Lawsuit Seeks Repayment in La Conchita Home Sale

The sign hanging from the balcony read simply “Now Selling.”

And the $280,000 asking price for the three-bedroom house near the ocean seemed a great bargain to Robert Ryan, a surfing Los Angeles Police Department sergeant, and his wife, Maureen.

They closed escrow on the purchase in August 1994 with both sides agreeing to save a few thousand dollars by negotiating the sale of the home without a real estate agent.

That deal now represents the last real estate transaction in the beleaguered community of La Conchita and the first lawsuit connected to the unstable hill that finally slid into the seaside hamlet last March--destroying nine homes and damaging dozens more.

The tale of an ocean-view dream home that soon became a financial nightmare was recounted in court Tuesday as Ventura County Superior Court Judge Barbara Lane listened to closing arguments in a 12-day, nonjury trial.

Within six weeks of the Ryans moving into the house, Ventura County officials issued a dire warning: The hillside was eventually going to fall. Worse, the home the Ryans purchased from John and Nancy Peltier was on Vista Del Rincon, which abuts the hill.

On March 4, 1995, the county’s prediction proved correct, and nine homes on the Ryans’ block were destroyed and scores more in La Conchita were severely damaged by a massive mudslide.

Although the Ryans’ new home sustained little damage, the couple moved out that day and have not returned. Their lawsuit accuses the Peltiers of fraud, and the Ryans want their $280,000 back plus unspecified damages.

The Ryans’ suit claims that the Peltiers knew the hill was unstable and dangerous but did not tell the couple about two smaller landslides that occurred nearby in 1992. The Ryans said that if they were told about those landslides--plus other drainage troubles that may be caused by a farm above the town--they would have passed on the sale.

“The whole picture was not given to the Ryans,” attorney Kirk Grossman told a judge during his closing argument Tuesday. “Caveat emptor has very little to do with California real estate law.”

But the Peltiers’ attorney, Robert Sawyer, argued that his clients, who now live in nearby Summerland, believed that the drainage problem had been fixed and that no further landslides were expected and therefore were under no obligation to discuss the problems.

He claimed that the Peltiers knew as much as the Ryans.

“What was happening on that hill was visible to the naked eye,” he said. “And what was concealed was concealed from all parties--both buyers and sellers.”

Sawyer blamed Ventura County officials for not disclosing earlier that the hill was precarious. Grossman produced a 1992 internal memo from a Ventura County geologist, which disclosed that at least two homes--including the one the Ryans bought-- was in imminent danger.

The Ryans filed their suit in December 1994 after Ventura County officials issued their warning--three months before the landslide.

Judge Lane told both sides Tuesday that she would decide the case within two weeks.

The Ryans have also joined 53 other La Conchita property owners in a lawsuit filed in Ventura County Superior Court, which blames the farm that owns the hill above their homes for the March landslide, which caused the evacuation of more than 100 residents.

The suit alleges that La Conchita Ranch Co.’s watering of its avocado and citrus fields above the town made the hill unstable.

Because of the slide, the suit alleges, the remaining homes have lost much of their value and are effectively unsalable. The Ventura County assessor recently devalued all of the homes in the town by as much 20%.