How a Black Woman Real Estate Mogul Is Fighting a System from Stealing $50M Worth of Property

By Anne Kihagi

These are complicated times and theft is more than robbing a bank. When a person is deprived of their hard-earned monies through illegality or scam, a theft occurs. Additionally, if honest people are silent, illegality becomes more perverse. Hence, we must all give truth a voice.

One of the oldest laws that we have as humans is: “Thou shall not steal!” To be clear, even if one is not robbing a bank, there is a lot of dishonest finesse.

Why is the wrongful taking of a person’s earnings stealing even if not at gunpoint theft? First, what is stealing? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as: “to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice…to come or go secretly, unobtrusively, gradually, or unexpectedly.”

There are two key elements of the definition of stealing. First, to take the property of another wrongfully. We can have a debate about what is the meaning of “wrongful” but – most of us might agree that any taking of someone’s property in violation of law would be wrongful.

Here, a few San Francisco Superior Court judges have defied rather than followed the law, and this is tantamount to theft. This is what has been happening in this black woman in San Francisco – and whereas we can agree that San Francisco marches to a different beat, we must all agree that its Courts, judges and City Attorneys are bound by the same LAWS that bind every other Californian resident or United States Citizen.

We would also agree that if the state and federal property laws, if violated by anyone – regardless of the “cloak” they wear, or title they give themselves, then we have a duty as a citizen to call them out as THIEVES as they would have orchestrated STEALING.

Because we have a problem with calling people out by the TRUE words, we ENABLE them to persist in their conduct. This is why the 2nd part of the definition of Stealing is relevant and it states: “especially as a habitual and regular practice.” When we fail to uphold the same standards for ANY OFFICIAL that we expect from any other citizen, we allow ourselves to be Transgressed upon.

Over the past 5 years, I have wailed, waved, and screamed about the corruption in the San Francisco Superior Court – not by all judges, but few who are overt and NOT covert. Several judges in the SF Court have ruled sua sponte and without permitted discussion, and in blatant disregard of the law. It is so understood, yet no one does anything about it.

I have written previously about Judge Charles F. Haines, who is a judge in the department that deals with everything to do with housing issues. One would assume to be hired as a judge for one of the most important departments, he would have to have experience and be willing be bound by the Judicial Canons: the most important of which is 3B which states: “2) A judge shall be faithful to the law regardless of partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism, and shall maintain professional competence in the law.” https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/ca_code_judicial_ethics.pdf

What does it mean to be faithful to the law? It is as simple as defined. Meaning – the judge must apply the law. The word “faithful” is not an accidentally chosen word – one can think of religious uses of the word. And it is a similar binding requirement of the judges if they accept the role/job of being a judge.

The goal is to show you how easy the laws are – and hence when one cloaked as a judge or a City Attorney chooses to ignore and violate the laws, their actions are intentional and only because it is easy to do so as they expect the public never to attempt to understand the law, and in hopes that they can get away with their abuses and misconduct.

Most people will have hard time believing, that without reason, the authorities took my buildings and transferred them to few white landlords.

This is NOT about simply calling out race, but to show how careless and disdainful the SF Court is in regard to my properties. And since no one can explain why a judge would choose to ignore the law, the only explanation is their actions are for corrupt purposes or bias. The transfer of my properties has been based on pretextual or false claims. To boot, I GOT ZERO from every Illegal Transfer / Theft.

So, for me, this is total theft and should not be sugar coded. In my case, the system thought they could steal $50 MILLION dollars worth of real estate from me with impunity and get away with it. For average people, the authorities could get away with this, but I stood up to be counted by learning the law. But they never expected that I would learn everything about law and teach others to look at the simple laws to see that there is no black-or-white interpretation. There can ONLY be one interpretation of the law – and despite the lie that has been sold to the rest of the world, San Francisco in my eyes is the MOST CORRUPT place I have encountered.

This is the problem, racial bias creeps into the system, not merely for black street people but also for more successful black litigants. Stealing from Black businesses is a daily occurrence in San Francisco– which I will discuss in further articles. But let’s look at how Judge Charles F. Haines and the San Francisco Court have stolen my hard-earned buildings, and why the Law will still hold them accountable to return each drop stolen – only if we hold them accountable.

My first three property acquisitions in San Francisco came after I had sold several buildings in Los Angeles. I hated hearing that my own sisters could not enjoy the city because of the high rents. So I decided to sell some of my best properties in Los Angeles so I could buy some in San Francisco where my siblings and I could happily live in.

All my buildings are my favorites. But specifically 1000 Filbert Street, San Francisco, (1000 Filbert St – Google Maps), I acquired it for a price of $3,100,000 in August 2013. I borrowed from Sterling Bank 65% of the purchase price and put down my own money for a sum of $1,000,000. This means I had a loan of $2.1 million dollars. When any property owner borrows from a bank, they enter into a Loan Agreement – which is comprised of a mortgage contract and another agreement to create a Security Agreement – in which the borrower agrees that the property title will be held in a Trust, until it the loan is paid in full, at which time the bank reconveys the Title Deed.

As part of the Mortgage Contract, the parties agree to certain conditions, for example, that the bank can seek control of the property to dispose of it in the event that you ever fail to make your monthly mortgage payments.

In my case, I had NEVER missed a single payment to my lender. In fact, the payments were automatically drawn from my bank account as I gave the bank authorization to take the payments each 10th of the month. I NEVER had any issues with the lender. Sometime in 2015, Sterling Bank was acquired by another bank – UMPQUA Bank from Portland, Oregon. By this time, I had a total of 10 loans with Sterling of which I had enjoyed an immensely great relationship.

Imagine – NEVER having missed any mortgage payment, that Umpqua Bank, represented by greedy attorneys, came to court and misrepresented the law to the Court. Most judges rely on the attorneys to properly inform them of the law, and the attorneys can be punished for misrepresenting the law. However, this has NOT happened and dirty lawyers, like Robert Kaplan of Jeffer Mengel – https://www.jmbm.com/robert-b-kaplan.html has been breaking the laws just to bring in fees for his company. It should be a big deal to throw away sell off without permission someone’s property. But this is clouded in formalities. [Another article to see how the attorneys made over $1.3 million in fees by misleading the judge and how he hopes to get away with violation of CalBar Rule 3.3A.]

Property laws are so important that the legislature has created very solid laws to protect property rights. The most important area of law is summarized by the Supreme Court statement:
“In California, as in most states, a creditor’s right to enforce a debt secured by a mortgage or deed of trust on real property is restricted by statute” – Supreme Court Walker v. Community Bank, 10 Cal.3d 729, 733-34 (Cal. 1974)

If any bank has a claim against its borrower and seeks to enforce that debt, it must slavishly adhere to the laws. These laws are spelled out: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=2924

Almost all homeowners know that if a lender claims they have breached the mortgage contract, the very first place to start is by filing a Notice of Default. The procedures are spelled out under Civil Code Section 2924 which holds that:

“the power shall not be exercised except where the mortgage or transfer is made pursuant to an order, judgment, or decree of a court of record… until all of the following apply:

(1) The trustee, mortgagee, or beneficiary, or any of their authorized agents shall first file for record, in the office of the recorder of each county wherein the mortgaged or trust property or some part or parcel thereof is situated, a notice of default. That notice of default shall include all of the following:

(A) A statement identifying the mortgage or deed of trust by stating the name or names of the trustor or trustors and giving the book and page, or instrument number, if applicable, where the mortgage or deed of trust is recorded or a description of the mortgaged or trust property.

(B) A statement that a breach of the obligation for which the mortgage or transfer in trust is security has occurred.

(C) A statement setting forth the nature of each breach actually known to the beneficiary and of the beneficiary’s election to sell or cause to be sold the property to satisfy that obligation and any other obligation secured by the deed of trust or mortgage that is in default.

In our case, we have NEVER received a Single Notice of Default on our property at 1000 Filbert Street, 4018 19th Street, 195 Eureka Street, San Francisco. Any judge would STOP right there as a key issue is missing. Yet, Judge Charles Haines issued orders asking Umpqua Bank to transfer our buildings to a stranger. In other words, no sale should have occurred absent a valid default.

No ONE can take your property by force, except if they comply with the law. And as the Supreme Court has stated in simple words: “In California, as in most states, a creditor’s right to enforce a debt secured by a mortgage or deed of trust on real property is restricted by statute.” The statute is written above for anyone to read. The material first step requires that “agents shall first file for record in the office of the recorder.” The use of “SHALL” is not a coincidence, and any judge or person hoping to violate such steps would be transgressing the law.

This is what Judge Haines has done repeatedly. The system hopes that you will not take time to read or that most people would be distracted by LABELS they put out in the press, but I invite you to dig into the above, as the San Francisco Court has stolen $50 MILLION worth of my Properties.

And I am going to get all the buildings back as there can NEVER be a legal transfer by THEFT. And this is the key, as he has taken the properties without the proper force of law. He has been the serving agent of the lender and the white system. And this is a problem because Haines is like the legal god; He decides it all. But what if he likes the city and is a political appointee? What if he doubts the property owner since she is African? What if he is too busy? There are a lot of landmines in the litigation fi3le.d

Join me in bringing awareness of judicial corruption, as that is the only way we can change the system. In the words of a famous man – Bob Marley in his legendary song, “Redemption Song”.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

We can only sing these songs when we STAND UP against any fight for our rights. It has nothing to do with my being black or a foreigner; it has to do with freeing ourselves so no one can assume they can treat us differently and get away with it. We must give Equal Application of Law a voice. Give a voice for the truth and what is right.

Notes: The picture above is my property at 1000 Filbert Street in San Francisco that they claim to have transferred for $5.1 million – and recall that the loan was only $2.1 million. YET NOT A SINGLE penny of $3 million has ever come to me. And in fact, there is NOT even a sale, as only by compliance with the law can there be a valid transfer. Next article, we will look at the additional illegal transfers.

To learn more about Anne Kihagi, visit her official website at AnneKihagiCA.com or send her email to [email protected]

Also be sure to follow her on Twitter – Tweeter @AnneKihagi1

This story first appeared on Blacknews.com.