L.A. Council OKs Crackdown on Land, Property Swindles

Citing an Antelope Valley scandal, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday moved to crack down on land fraud and give new protection to landowners from property swindles.

The council approved a package of three measures, including one designed to cut into a backlog of 500 cases of illegal subdivision now pending.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who sponsored the legislation, said he was responding to a series ii The Times about developer Marshall Redman, who was charged in May with theft and fraud in a $20-million Antelope Valley real estate scheme.

“These will make sure we are not put in the same position,” Bernson said of the legislation.

Between 1978 and 1994, authorities allege that Redman’s three companies sold illegally subdivided land in Antelope Valley to thousands of working-class Latinos. At the time Redman was criminally charged, dozens of his victims lived on tracts in the desert without water, power or sewer service.

Although the Redman charges involved the subdivision and sale of land in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles, Kern and San Bernardino counties, Bernson said he was concerned that many of the victims of the alleged fraud have been Los Angeles residents.

Bernson said he proposed the measures to reduce the chances of similar schemes happening in the city.

City officials said they uncover about 200 instances of illegal land subdivision each year. But they said they rarely find that fraud is involved.

“We don’t expect to find fraud, but we want to keep an eye out for it,” said Frank Eberhard, the city’s deputy director of planning.

Ordinances passed by the council Tuesday include a requirement that title insurance cover land fraud and illegal subdivision violations; a directive to the planning department to immediately notify property owners of potential violations on their property, and the expenditure of $72,000 to hire a planning associate to exclusively process a backlog of about 500 illegal subdivision violations.

The most common violations occur when a landowner splits a large residential lot and sells off the back half for development, city officials said.

But unless the landowner submits proper documentation and meets city requirements for lot size, road access and utilities, the division is illegal. The buyer of the new lot subdivision may not be able to build on the lot.

Until the property owner meets with city officials to correct the problem, the city will not issue any building permits for the property.

If a landowner attempts to sell the illegally subdivided land, city officials can pursue criminal charges, Eberhard said.

In the wake of the Redman case, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors created special committees to investigate better early-warning systems for land fraud, and to help out the families that still live on the high desert land.