Cocktails & Popcorn: February 20th, 2019. Strzok Connection To Whelan Russian Weapons/Browder/Calvey/Avetisyan - We Are In Detroit

Paul Whelan has been working for Russia since 2011

https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2018/11/adam-hollier-has-fake-michigan-swearing.html

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More Corporate Shape Shifters: Another Set Of LLCs Stealin' Detroit Properties From The Poors

Much love to Allie Gross for another fabulous piece of reporting.

She should interview Bert Johnson when he gets out of prison for the holidays to get more, detailed information on how these fake land contracts and fake LLCs were stealin'.

I believe he is a subject matter expert.

Oh, and so is Adam Hollier.

Detroit land owner Michael G. Kelly sued over 'predatory' contracts

A lawsuit filed in federal court this week takes aim at Michael G. Kelly, one of the top landowners in Detroit, over contracts for housing that the suit calls "predatory."

The suit filed Monday by Mantese Honigman and Michigan Legal Services seeks class-action status and alleges that Kelly and four other defendants lured unassuming and vulnerable Detroiters into a "real estate bait and switch" in violation of the Truth in Lending Act and the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act.

At the crux of the complaint is the use by Kelly — and the various LLCs associated with him such as Detroit Property Exchange — of contracts that seem to operate outside of federal regulations, contracts Joe McGuire, an attorney at Michigan Legal Services who focuses on housing issues in Detroit, says are actually land contracts, which would have some consumer protections.

"The question that this litigation raises," said McGuire, "is can a property like Detroit Property Exchange get around the regulations that were passed by Congress specifically to address predatory lending, like this, simply by renaming the agreement to something other than land contract?" 

The Detroit Free Press reached out to Kelly for comment via the Detroit Property Exchange but did not hear back.

Land contracts are  popular home-buying tools in Detroit where mortgages have historically been hard to come by. They often operate in a nebulous legal space and leave little protections for buyers (called vendees). They also often result in evictions.

But, according to McGuire, a general land contract pales in comparison to the  vague and confusing agreements Kelly uses in his land deals.

"Often, when people hear about land contracts, if all they're used to is your conventional mortgage, they are struck by how much worse a land contract is in the way it's written," McGuire said. "They balk at the idea that you only get your deed when it's paid all off, and that there is no appraisal required, no inspection in the law. But these agreements (used by Kelly) make land contracts look amazing."

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the deals would work like this: 

• Kelly (or one of his companies) would purchase homes, often sight unseen, at the Wayne County Tax auction for a low price. The homes are usually dilapidated. 
• After attracting a potential buyer, Kelly (or one of his companies) would have them sign an "ambiguous, opaque contract" with a high interest rate. 
• Under the contract, the purchaser would be under the impression that after several years of payments they would own the property, and that in the interim, as the future owner, they would be responsible for fixing up the property.
• When the buyer "inevitably" got behind on payments "due to their general lack of an ability to pay back the loan," Kelly (or one of his companies) would evict the purchaser as a tenant, rather than a land contract vendee, who would have more time to catch up on payments before being evicted.
• The tenant's eviction would go unquestioned because of the contract's "intentional use of ambiguous, confusing, cherry-picked language." Adding to the chaos is the fact that purchasers would have typically signed two documents when committing to the property: a "Lease with Option" and "Real Estate Purchase Agreement." One makes the customer a tenant; the other makes them a purchaser — together they created confusion. 
• Once the "purchaser" had been evicted, the complaint alleged that the scheme would begin again with a new potential buyer.

While the complaint states the deals were predicated on buyers never actually getting the property, a land contract-like agreement was used instead of a rental agreement because it was more lucrative for the defendants.

Michigan law prohibits landlords from collecting a security deposit greater than 1.5 times the monthly rent, but the seller of a land contract can ask for a "nonrefundable down payment" at a cost far greater to the purchaser.

"Defendant sold plaintiffs and the class members home ownership but evicted them as tenants," the complaint said, noting that Detroit Property Exchange, one of Kelly's businesses, has a ratio of 1.49 "evictions" for every property in their portfolio.

Ultimately, according to the complaint, the contracts acted as "high-cost mortgages" and served to originate loans (the monthly bills "buyers" received often had "loan numbers" on them).

Because of this, the complaint states, the Truth in Lending Act — a 1968 federal law aiming to protect consumers in dealings with lenders and creditors — and the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act — a 1994 amendment to the Truth in Lending Act that tackles abusive practices with high-interest rates — should apply.

And because many of the potential buyers could not reasonably make the monthly "rent-to-own" payments — and no consumer financial data was reasonably collected or analyzed — the complaint states the land contracts were ultimately predatory.

The four other defendants are  entities Kelly uses for his land contract business — Detroit Property Exchange, Suena Homes Realty LLC and Homes of Detroit LLC — and Crystian Segura, a licensed real estate agent and property manager for a Kelly real estate company.

The representative plaintiffs are Natalie James, Jerome Day and Carl Austin. All three entered into contracts with the defendants. The complaint seeks class-action certification and the plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial.

More: Instagram campaign shows effects of Detroit speculation

More: Detroit real estate game creates chaos in neighborhoods

More: Radical new program saves Detroiters from brink of homelessness

A costly route to home ownership

In the United States, land contracts — also known as a contract for deed — were popularized between the 1930s and 1960s as a tool for African-Americans who were prevented from accessing traditional mortgage loans to buy homes.

It is estimated that in Chicago during the 1950s, 85 percent of properties bought by African-Americans were purchased using land contracts.

While land contracts have ebbed in popularity over the decades, especially following the subprime foreclosure crisis that placed constrictions on mortgage lending, they've seen a resurgence as a tool for individuals who cannot obtain conventional home financing.

This is particularly the case in Detroit, but how many have been issued over the years is not known because Michigan law does not require land contracts to be filed with any governmental entity.

"Land contracts can be so pernicious — there is no filing requirement, there is just no regulation on them," Peter Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School, said this summer for an article on property speculation in Detroit.

"They can just exist in this completely private space."

Under typical land contracts, the seller holds the deed to the property until the contract — a certain purchase price at an interest rate over a series of years — has been fulfilled. Despite not having a legal title to the house, the buyer, or vendee, is typically obligated to pay property taxes, obtain homeowners insurance and make repairs.

Language within land contracts varies, but it typically includes, as explained in the complaint, vague wording that favors the seller.

"If the buyer defaults during the term of years, the contract usually purports to allow the seller to cancel (or "forfeit") the land contract, keep all payments made by the buyer and evict the buyer through a forfeiture proceeding," the complaint explains.

Land contract forfeiture actions give a vendee 90 days to repay what is owed (180 days if they've already paid 50 percent of the purchase price by the time the case goes to court).

But Kelly has treated the agreements he has made as tenant-evictions, the complaint states, which give tenants only 10 days to pay what is owed.

Ultimately, the complaint states, the agreements — despite their names — are land contracts. 

"The reason that these are land contracts, despite the fact that they slapped a different name on top of it," McGuire said, "is they operate exactly like land contracts."

He said that   following the housing crisis, regulations were passed  targeting land contracts.

As a reaction, those utilizing them began to call them something else.

“It’s pretty common knowledge that this is what drove a lot of these companies that were former land contract sellers to instead start calling these contracts 'lease with option to buy' or 'rent to own' instead of land contracts,” McGuire said.

But, he added, "if you look at the paperwork Detroit Property Exchange gives these customers, they have amortization schedules, they have statements that refer to a loan number, they have (an) interest rate and how it’s being applied to the purchase price; they even in one case ... gave the customer the required IRS form for writing off mortgage interest on income taxes," said McGuire.

"Everything they're giving the customer gives them the impression that they're buying property," McQuire continued. "And ... from what I've heard, when the customer is going in, the agreements are referred to as land contracts. You're told you're buying a property."

They therefore should be subject to federal consumer protection laws that require certain disclosures and evaluations around a customer's ability to repay the loan, the complaint states.

Exploiting buyers

"For buyers, the land contract represents an opportunity to own their homes," Josh Akers, assistant professor of Geography and Urban Regional Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Eric Seymour, a postdoctoral research assistant at Brown University, wrote in a 2018 paper on land contracts that the complaint cites. "For unscrupulous agents, it is an opportunity to profit through exploitation and eviction."

In 2017, efforts to regulate land contracts never came to be, according to Lorray Brown, co-director of the Michigan Law Poverty Program, who was working on draft legislation.

"The draft legislation never made it out of the work-group meetings" as there was a lot of opposition "from the industry folks," Brown said this summer, noting that she has seen a number of private investors purchasing uninhabitable and dilapidated foreclosed homes and selling them to consumers under land contracts.

"These land contracts are predatory because they are set up to fail," she said, explaining that the contracts often require consumers to take on all of the obligations of a homeowner with none of the rights.

"The terms of the contract require the consumer to fix up the property within a reasonable time. Then there is usually a provision that says if the consumer fails to comply with any of the provisions, the contract will convert to a month-to-month tenancy and the seller will terminate the contract. The seller then takes back the property through eviction and the consumer loses all of the money invested in repairing the property," Brown wrote.

Top Property Speculators and Acquisition Pipelines in Detroit in 2016

Name	Company	Pipeline	Properties
John Hantz	Hantz Farms	Tax Foreclosure	1,941
Manuel Moroun	Various	Tax Foreclosure	1,208
Melvin Washington	Various	Government	665
Michael Kelly	Various	Tax Foreclosure	534
Dennis Elliott	Asset Managers Direct	REO	391
Matthew Tatarian	Various	Tax Foreclosure	344
Bert Dearing Jr.	Various	Tax Foreclosure	304
Stephen Hagerman	Brick Homes, Unique Homes, Other	REO	207
Leslie Coxon	Home Source Detroit	REO	177

Kelly, according to Akers, is one of the more "sophisticated" speculators working in Detroit. 

"He's not just engaged in a single practice like the one called out here in the complaint, but he also purchases vacant land near potential development sites, he finds wrinkles in land records. He's notorious for purchasing parcels within parcels in the land auction," Akers said, pointing to a 2011 Detroit News article that detailed this unusual practice where Kelly has been known to find anomalies in the tax auction — single parcels within a business's larger footprint — and then scooping them up with the intention of selling them back to the buisness at a premium. He notably did this in 2006 with a parcel within a strip club's parking lot. He bought the land for just over $1,000 and sold it back to the club for $19,000.

Today, Akers said Kelly owns roughly 500 properties in Detroit. At the peak of his two-decades of buying properties in the Wayne County Tax Auction, Kelly had more than 1,150 parcels, according to the complaint.

"He's one of the earliest and most recurring characters in the auction showing up in person for days with a team of people going back and forth looking over things and just acquiring lots of properties," said Akers.

Class Action Complaint by on Scribd

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Cocktails & Popcorn: How Can Michigan Board Of Canvassers Certify Or Record The 2018 General Election When The Primary Has Not Even Been Certified Or Recorded?

2018 has been a bountiful year for nullifications. I hear 2016 was even more robust.

On November 26, 2018, at 2:00 p.m., the Michigan Board of Canvassers will meet to address:

• Canvass and certification of the results of the November 6, 2018 general election. 
• Recording the results of the following special elections held November 6, 2018: 
• The results of the Wayne County canvass for the special election for the office of U.S. Representative in Congress, 13th District, partial term ending January 3, 2019. 
• The results of the Wayne County canvass for the special election for the office of State Senator, 2nd District, partial term ending January 1, 2019. 
• The results of the Ingham County canvass for the special election for the office of State Representative, 68th District, partial term ending January 1, 2019. 

This should be fun considering the Board has yet to certify and record the August 7, 2018 Primary Election.

I do not believe Adam Hollier got the notice.

Would someone please be so kind to forward this to him.

Michigan Board of Canvassers Notice On Certification and Recording of November 6, 2018 Elections by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Adam Hollier Has A Fake Michigan Swearing In Ceremony In Highland Park

Adam Hollier being sworn into office as State Senator
by Judge Cynthia Stephens in front of an urban assault
military vehicle

Boy, oh boy, Adam really, really wants to be State Senator.

He is picking up the mantel of his former boss.

I hear Mike Duggan has great expectations for him.

Despite the fact that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers deferred certification of the 2018 Primary Election to the Michigan Secretary of State Board of Canvassers, who in turn has been silent, probably due to the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice Election Interference investigation is ongoing, with Grand Jury, for a few years now, Adam Hollier decided to have a fake swearing in ceremony in the City of Highland Park, by State Judge Cynthia Stephens, in front of a big military armored truck.

Talk about sending a message!

Now, what exactly is that message is left open to interpretation, but I am going with the same message his former boss dropped, the day of sentencing considering some of those same people who used their official capacities to write letters of sentencing recommendations attended the event.

For all the latest updates on the certification and recording of the Michigan 2018 election, I would strongly encourage you to check in with me, or PACER. because no one is talking about it but me, but hey, what do I know?

I know you can also check in with the Michigan Secretary of State Board of Canvassers to see when, or rather, what they are going to be doing with this election investigation.

https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1633_41221---,00.html


I know someone should ask him about how he got his house(s).

FUN FACT! NO ONE FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE EXECUTED THIS SWEARING NOR RECORDED HIS OATH OF OFFICE IN THE GREAT REPOSITORY OF THE STATE  SEAL

ANOTHER FUN FACT! THE MICHIGAN 2018 ELECTION HAS NOT BEEN CERTIFIED OR OFFICIALLY RECORDED

Military urban assault vehicles, the latest fashion
must have for fake swearing in ceremonies

Wayne County, Michigan Elec... by on Scribd

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Cocktails & Popcorn: Bert Johnson Made A Video To Expand His Investigation

Cool story, Bruh.

I sit with baited breath, waiting to hear their stories.

Political pals helped spare Johnson stiff prison term

Janee Ayers

Detroit — Several elected officials and political heavyweights, including former Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, helped disgraced state Sen. Bert Johnson dodge a stiff prison term by writing supportive letters to the court.

More than two dozen letters were made public Monday and revealed that politicians, including Detroit City Council members Scott Benson and Janee Ayers, used city letterhead while writing letters supporting Johnson's plea for leniency.

The letters were made public four days after Johnson was sentenced to 90 days in a county jail for stealing more than $23,000 from taxpayers by adding a ghost employee to his senate payroll. U.S. District Judge Matthew Leitman cited the letters, saying that without the personal appeals, he would have sentenced Johnson to as much as 12 months in federal prison.

Johnson received support from numerous Democratic Party heavyweights and a broad cross-section of the community: local and state politicians, a lobbyist and relatives who backed a corrupt politician with a rap sheet, a chronic list of bad debts and the worst attendance record in the state Legislature.

“In my conversations with Bert he realizes he made a mistake, but I hope you will exercise the greatest level of leniency in your sentencing of Mr. Johnson," Benson wrote. "Even though a sever (sic) lapse of judgment has occurred, Bert is not a threat to society and his community can best be served by him remaining free."

Ayers called Johnson one of her best friends.

“Bert has been a mentor and a strong pillar within the community that he represents and throughout the state," Ayers wrote.

In an interview Monday, Ayers said she didn’t think there was anything wrong with using city letterhead since the letter was coming from two vantage points; in her official capacity as a council person as well as on a personal level.

“It was an official letter coming from me as a council person. I didn’t think of it as infringing on any rules,” Ayers said. “I wrote the letter as a council  member and I printed it out on my letter head as a council person. If it is a negligence in using that, I apologize. I didn’t think about it from that perspective.”

Bing, meanwhile, wrote that Johnson was a hard-working legislator who fought for constituents.

“I am aware that Bert has pleaded guilty; but would hope that his political background, his public service, as well as his overall commitment to his community be considered and, therefore, allow for leniency regarding his sentencing," Bing wrote.

Johnson's public service outweighed his crimes and rap sheet, which includes a teenage conviction for armed robbery, Johnson's defense lawyer John Shea said last week.

“Please do not allow this recent indiscretion tarnish the good that Mr. Johnson has done as a state representative and senator," Highland Park Mayor Hubert Yopp wroteon city letterhead.

State Rep. Jewell Jones, a first-term Democratic lawmaker from Inkster, called Johnson a "gladiator."

36th District Court Judge William McConico 

“It is times like now when we need powerful, respected leaders in our nation, I believe it would be a disservice to the public to lose a gladiator like Bertram Johnson," Jones wrote. "Godspeed!”

William McConico, a 36th District Court Judge in Detroit, cited his friendship with Johnson while urging leniency.

“I ask you to take into account that Bert is much more of an asset within the community than away from it,” McConico wrote.

Johnson fought for the poor and children, wrote former state Rep. Phil Cavanaugh, who works for the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office.

“I believe that Bertram Johnson is truly remorseful for any wrongdoing,” Cavanaugh wrote.

A new documentary raises questions about Johnson’s remorse.

Speaking directly to the camera at some point after his indictment but prior to his conviction, Johnson says he went to the Capitol “every day trying to make a difference, trying to make a change” and help constituents.

“And somebody wants to take it away from you? Somebody wants to say you’re not the guy anymore? Frustrated is not the word. It’s (expletive).”

Bert Johnson Letters of Support in Sentencing To Judge Leitman, MIED -- by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Metro Times & Bridge Magazine Refuse To Speak Upon The Detroit Land Bank Authority Fraud Schemes

The Detroit Land Bank Authority is not hoarding houses because no one wants them.

See, all the good houses went to their friends and family, first.  Just ask Adam Hollier and other officials.

Then, considering the fact that Detroit has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the nation for a major city, no one can afford to purchase.

Then, no one wants to buy the homes because the average individual cannot afford the permits, materials, labor to bring it up to code.

Then, due to the jacked up deeds, no one can get a mortgage or a lien for construction.

I have not checked recently, but, they were attempting to enforce their own private, made up, laws and code enforcement with threats of reconveyance, because they did UCC liens on all the properties, that no one could bring the house up to code within the 6 months mandated time frame, which means, even if you did buy the home, you would never, ever own it because they bundled and flipped for more financial transactions.

I just do not understand why articles, such as this, are continuously generated to intentionally omit any of the work I have done on the Detroit Land Bank Authority, but then again, it is best to stay away from me because I have a very strong aversion to propaganda.

I truly hope there is going to be federal receivership for the entire City of Detroit to absorb this hot mess.

In the spirit of fuchsia...

Report: Detroit Land Bank is hoarding houses

Detroit's Land Bank was established in 2011 to sell Detroit's blighted homes, which have ballooned in number following the last decade's subprime housing and tax-foreclosure crises. So far, the organization has accomplished one part of its mission, amassing tens of thousands of vacant homes. The only problem is — the quasi-governmental agency doesn't seem to really be doing anything with them.

Ok, Metro Times is going to have to come up with some proofs to support the statement by Bridge Magazine that the Detroit Land Bank Authority was established in 2011.

So says a new report from Bridge Magazine, which takes a look at the Land Bank's numbers. The city has at least 43,500 vacant homes, and the land bank owns nearly 30,000 of them. Many of the homes were acquired through tax foreclosures, with more than 1 in 3 Detroit homes having gone into foreclosure in the past 15 years. According to Bridge, of the Land Bank's stock, only 3 percent are listed for sale, and the Land Bank owns about 20 percent of the single-family homes in the city. That's a lot of houses going nowhere.

Well, it seems no one wants to discuss my work on this matter, but you can, by clicking the link.

The Land Bank's executive director Saskia Thompson told Bridge that there is room for improvement — she said she'd like to increase monthly sales in the next year — but also defended the organization's practices.

"People say to us 'you aren't putting them up for sale fast enough,' but there is nothing that we can see in the market there that actually tells us that we are doing this too slowly," she said. "I would say it's the opposite. In some parts of the city, we are 75 percent of all the market activity."

Saskia has some defensive issues she is going through, right about now.

But some homeowners and prospective homeowners described a frustrating process in trying to acquire Detroit Land Bank-owned houses, including confusion in how the process works, unresponsive phone calls sent to the agency, and a lack of help for people who have to make repairs to land bank bought-houses — which require repairs within six months of purchasing lest the house reverts back to the agency.

That is what happens when you deal with "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending).

"I wouldn’t recommend for anybody else to buy through the Land Bank," one struggling homeowner told the publication. "Not at all."

Neither would I.  The titles are all jacked.

Michigan's rates of black homeownership have plummeted since 2000, according to one study. This has been felt particularly strong in majority black Detroit, where 54 percent of residents rented in 2016, compared to 45 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the city has ramped up petty blight enforcement against citizens, The Detroit Land Bank is currently under investigation by the federal government for possible bid-rigging and its rising costs of demolitions. 

I wish people would stop reducing public corruption down to arguments of melanin.  Fraud, is an equal opportunity daily event, as long as this Detroit Land Bank Authority continues to operate.

Stay tuned.

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