Land Fraud Panel to Unveil Reforms
Carlos Jackson is a veteran bureaucrat, and in his present job--reforming county real estate laws--past battle strategies have come in handy.
Since June, when he became chairman of a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich to devise ways to protect buyers of undeveloped land, Jackson and 18 public and private industry experts have examined local government’s role as watchdog over real estate sales.
Realtors, title officers, law enforcement officials and county government bureaucrats have met more than a dozen times to hash out a public-interest manifesto of change to give buyers better information and suggest ways to strengthen consumer laws.
On Tuesday, Jackson and key panel members will report their findings to the Board of Supervisors. And while they’re ready for a showdown with critics and probably a round of public hearings, Jackson believes the panel has done its job well.
“I feel good about it,” Jackson, head of the county’s Community Development Agency, said of the 35-page final report. “This is real, concrete stuff that people can understand and act upon, suggestions that will make a difference.
“I see this as an important ingredient for the first step to stop this kind of crime. Maybe a year from now we can look at it and see if it has been preventive enough.”
The Jackson task force was one of two panels created by the Board of Supervisors in response to a series of land sales by millionaire developer Marshall Redman, who between 1978 and 1994 sold more than 2,500 parcels of Antelope Valley land to working-class Latinos--often illegally subdivided properties plagued by a host of legal entanglements.
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Citing The Times’ disclosures on Redman, the second task force has sought ways to immediately assist dozens of victims who live in the high desert without utilities. The panel has helped some receive water and is also developing a plan to help many who did business with Redman to purchase government-owned foreclosed homes at a discount.
The 68-year-old Redman has been charged with fraud in connection with the sales and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing next week.
As a result of its six-month study, Jackson’s task force has drafted a host of recommendations that include an aggressive public education program featuring an anti-fraud tip sheet written in both Spanish and English to be circulated at county agencies, public libraries, title offices and other outlets.
Under the task force plan, the county’s Department of Consumer Affairs would be the designated contact group to collect complaints and monitor any pattern of fraud, as well as foster better communication between county agencies about such crimes.
The task force report also suggests several changes to county law, including an amendment that would require land sellers to provide documentation to buyers that land was legally subdivided before it was sold. The laws would force developers to meet “truth requirements” when dealing with both buyers and advertising outlets such as television and radio stations.
And in what officials believe would perhaps set a precedent nationwide, the report recommends that all land-sale contracts be recorded with the county so officials can track developers such as Redman who devise “invisible contracts” in which title is not due to be delivered until years after the sale is made.
Task force members disagreed over the burden to the real estate and title industries that would be created by the provisions, but say that before becoming law any proposed land-use regulations must be subject to public comment through the county’s Regional Planning Commission.
But the report stresses that loopholes in county regulation created a wide-open playing field for unscrupulous developers--loopholes that needed to be filled. “While we acknowledge that dishonest individuals may continue to ignore laws,” the report reads, “we believe that Marshall Redman’s ability to commit fraud on such a massive scale was clearly abetted by a lack of regulation.”
Criticism of the panel’s recommendations has already surfaced. An Antonovich aide said he believes the provisions outlined in the report don’t go far enough.
“On the whole, these suggestions are pretty good,” said Dave Vannatta, planning deputy for Antonovich. “But there are some disclosure issues that need to be addressed. As it stands, most of the disclosures would come on residentially zoned land.
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“But in the Antelope Valley, where this fraud occurred, there are several other types of zoning where disclosures need to be issued. It needs to be broadened. It’s a good first start, but there are still loopholes that need to be closed.”
Pastor Herrera, director of the county’s Department of Consumer Affairs, said one important success of the panel is the creation of an early-warning system to catch land fraud before it becomes a widespread problem.
“In the past, there was no coordination between agencies in the county. Reports of fraud made to one agency sank before they were ever passed on to another,” he said. “With this early-warning system we are creating that process, a way to trigger referrals from one office to another.”
Down the road, Herrera said, the county hopes to develop a computer network that each agency--the tax assessor, regional planning, building and safety--can access.
“I’m proud of this effort,” Herrera said of the report. “I think it’s a real proactive effort on the part of the county, an effort to bridge communication gaps that existed in the past in a huge bureaucracy.”
While Jackson hopes the penalties linked to new ordinances will one day be upgraded from misdemeanors to felonies, he believes the recommendations are strong enough to become a blueprint for other California counties and eventually be integrated into state law.
“We’ve been shown that we have a real problem with land fraud in Los Angles County,” he said. “We had to do something about it. And I think we did. I stand by this report, these recommendations. They’re a good beginning.”
