Wish List for My House. Please Donate.

So recently I realized that I'm getting broke fixing up my house and paying all the taxes. I spent pretty much all my savings on repairs, taxes, and city fines.

The city repeatedly cited my house for blight for no apparent reason, other than the fact that we were adverse possessors. At the end of it they claimed I owed thousands of dollars which I was forced to pay. I sued the city to get the money back, but the judge stated I lacked "standing" until I receive a court order declaring my title by adverse possession to be clear. This despite the fact that I have been occupying the property for over a decade.

I'm not going to go on about how the city is wrong or how the ruling in my case is wrong. For more info on how corrupt the City of Oakland is go to the grand jury report on the subject, pages 63 - 98 at the link below:

http://www.acgov.org/grandjury/final2010-2011.pdf

What my housemates and I have decided is to try to save money by coming up with a list of items that we need for our house that we should keep our eye out for in free boxes, curb sides, craigslist, or wherever.

I should mention that since the city also refuses to let me have a grid tie in for my house much of the list are items necessary to run an off-grid house on 12 volts D.C. current through conventional A.C. wiring and fixtures.

Also, we are having a garden/yard work party on April 13th. Yes, that is Friday the 13th.

If anyone has any of the following items or knows where we can get them for free or super cheap please let me know. My email is sdecaprio@hotmail.com


Wish List

1. 2 bathroom sinks
2. anything cool that runs on 12 volts D.C.
3. 12 volt D.C. lighting fixtures
4. 12 volt D.C. to 18 volt D.C. adapter for computer that doesn't convert to A.C. in between
5. wiring, electric plugs, car lighter plugs for wiring our A.C. style plugs which are running on 12 volt D.C. to work with 12volt D.C. appliances.
6. Exterior siding for our 10' by 12' by 10' shack
7. Dry wall plaster
8. a two burner propane stove such as a Coleman
9. food seeds and stuff for sprouting and planting
10. Native plants/Native Vining plants.
11. Willow

Foreclosure Evictions Require 90 Days Notice. Fight Back!

If you are a tenant living in a foreclosure property with or without a written lease agreement you have the right to receive a minimum of 90 days notice before an eviction proceeding can begin under the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, S896, Sec. 702. 

Under California law the 90 days does not start until after the new owner contacts you personally in writing with a "Notice to Pay Rent or Quit". The notice must be in "writing, requiring its payment, stating the amount which is due, the name, telephone number, and address of the person to whom the rent payment shall be made" under California Code of Civil Procedure section 1161.

Of course knowing your rights and effectively asserting your rights are two different things. There are plenty of evictions that move forward despite the fact that the tenant in the foreclosure was not provided 90 days notice. Ironically the person deprived 90 days notice has the obligation to file a motion in court to demand the notice they were deprived. For most tenants this makes the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act worthless since the burden of demanding ones rights is placed on the tenant, and that burden requires either finding an attorney or having a working knowledge of the courts.

That is why I have developed fill in the blank forms for a Demurrer which is a motion to dismiss the case without trial that you can file with the courts. Simply fill in the blanks, mail a copy to the landlord's attorney along with the other documents listed below, keep a copy for yourself, and show up in court on the day you are scheduled.

The first form is a Notice of Demurrer which is a notice that you are asking the court to dismiss the eviction proceeding because the Unlawful Detainer Complaint is in clear error due to a failure to provide proper notice.

The second form is the Demurrer which is the actual argument for the dismissal.

You will also need to fill out a "Prejudgment Claim of Right to Possession"

You will also need to have someone else mail the copies to the attorney and have that person fill out a "Proof of Service by First Class Mail" or "Proof of Personal Service" if hand delivered.

Also, you may qualify to have your fees waived so you should probably fill out a fee waiver form. Do not mail this to your landlords attorney because your financial standing is confidential. The rest of the documents must be copied in triplicate with the original filed with the courts, a copy for your landlords attorney, and one for yourself.

Remember, if this doesn't work don't give up. This is merely an opening salvo to shut down the eviction process immediately and get the new owner and their lawyers to come to the table and negotiate.

If your demurrer is over-ruled the next step is to file an Answer while attempting to negotiate with the owner. In some cities like Oakland there are Just Cause for Eviction Ordinances which prohibit evictions after a foreclosure. In such cities you can win the right to stay in your home if you keep up the fight and learn your local ordinance.

As always I must state that I am not an attorney and do not guarantee the effectiveness of this advice nor the documents linked to this post.

Fight back at your own risk.... or good fortune.

Property Laws for Defending an Occupation

So Land Action (our non-profit) organized a teach-in supporting Occupy Oakland to share our experiences and the experiences of others to provide information to develop the best possible strategies for establishing and defending occupations of all types.

Many people expressed an interest to defend foreclosures, reclaim foreclosures, establish new encampments, and establish new squats. All of these activities have legal ramifications and the following is what we covered in the property law teach in.

Disclaimer: This legal essay is not all inclusive nor do I make any assurance to it's accuracy as I am not an attorney. All the law cited in this post is California law as it pertains to Alameda County unless stated otherwise. Laws may vary from state to state, and their enforcement may vary depending on the city you are in.

There are three areas of the law that pertain to occupying land; adverse possession (best case scenario), criminal trespass (worst case scenario), and civil trespass (second best scenario).

1. Adverse Possession

First, there are the laws pertaining to adverse possession in which the occupier of land claims ownership of the land until proven otherwise. The most basic claim is title by occupancy pursuant to Civil Code Section 1006 where the occupier of land is the presumptive owner. This law is very simple so I will quote it in it's entirety:

"Civil Code Section 1006.  Occupancy for any period confers a title sufficient against all except the state and those who have title by prescription, accession, transfer, will, or succession; but the title conferred by occupancy is not a sufficient interest in real property to enable theoccupant or the occupant's privies to commence or maintain an actionto quiet title, unless the occupancy has ripened into title by prescription."

Of course simply because you occupy a property for a short time it doesn't mean you own the property against someone who can prove they are the true owner. Civil Code Section 1006 does provide you the protection, in certain circumstances, requiring the property owner to prove they own the property in court before an eviction can occur. In some cases, especially foreclosures, the bank may have a difficult time proving they own the property because often the paperwork has changed many hands and has been done poorly. If the owner can't prove they own the property an eviction cannot occur. (at least in theory)

Property Research for Occupy Oakland

Lately I have become an ad hoc instructor on the topic of researching properties for housing reclamation and foreclosure defense by other participants in the Occupy Oakland movement. Occupy Oakland has begun to focus on bank foreclosed properties as the nexus between the takeover by the 1% of our country and it's direct effect on our local community. This realization by Occupy Oakland as well as Occupy Oakland has been a tremendous inspiration for me as I have been fighting for a decade for housing rights and squatting. I am proud to be offering my experience to the movement.

On that note I am offering the step by step process I go through in Oakland to research a property. I provide this information to expand the actions throughout Oakland as well as to offer a template that may be used by occupiers throughout the U.S. and the World.

Step One: Identify Properties

Before you can begin researching properties you must have a specific property or properties in mind. How you identify these properties depends on what you intend to do.

A. Foreclosure Properties

For foreclosure defense you can ask people who are in foreclosure to come forward for assistance. If you want to find foreclosures first rather than wait for people to come forward there are many sources for foreclosure listings. For a list that is already compiled The San Francisco Chronicle has an online database of foreclosed properties:

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/foreclosures/

If you would like to do direct research on foreclosures rather than rely on the San Francisco Chronicle there is a process for doing that as well. You can access that information through the Alameda County Recorder's office. The information is available at their office in full or in part online.

http://www.acgov.org/auditor/clerk/propertysearch.htm

When searching for foreclosures you will search for a document called a Notice of Default. Not all Notices of Default are foreclosures. The Notice of Default must be associated with a Deed of Trust. This is because in California the mortgage and subsequent foreclosure process is done through a Deed of Trust where a trustee is granted the authority to act as a referee between the borrower and the lender in a mortgage.

To find the location of the property in foreclosure you must find a description of the property. That description is usually attached to the mortgage agreement which is in turn attached to the deed of trust. Usually the property descriptions leave out the actual address or parcel number. They provide cross streets and lot measurements instead so a little deduction will probably be necessary.

Although doing direct research is more work you have the advantage of being able to identify foreclosed properties much earlier in the foreclosure process. With that in mind it should be noted that a homeowner receiving a Notice of Default will have time to avoid foreclosure by paying the bank the delinquent amount.

B. Abandoned Properties

The best way to identify abandoned properties is by canvassing a neighborhood house by house and block by block. I recommend identifying a specific area and go up and down in one direction street by street until you've covered the area. After that go back through the same area on all the cross street. In this way you can cover a specific area in a grid ensuring that you have observed every house. Usually the best spots are the ones that are the least obvious so it's important to be thorough.

An alternative method is to use the City of Oakland's blighted property list, and then scout those particular addresses, even scouting them online with a street view setting.

Here is the City of Oakland's list of blighted properties:

http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/ceda/revised/blighted-properties/cover-blight.html

Please keep in mind that only a few blighted properties are abandoned. The City of Oakland often uses blight as a means to harass people as well so make sure you are careful when using the city's list.

In the end I prefer the canvassing approach since many abandoned properties aren't reported as blight and many so called "blighted" properties are just people being harassed by the city or uptight neighbors.

The next three steps involve a trip to downtown Oakland near lake Merritt. I go to the tax assessor, tax collector, county courthouse, and county recorders office.


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Squatter's Life

I originally wrote this article for Invisible Oranges a heavy metal blog.

I met Mila in 1999 at La Scintilla, a squat in Modena, Italy. I was on tour with my previous band Lesser of Two. Mila runs a number of labels including Agipunk, Break the Chains, and Iconoclast. Recently Iconoclast agreed to release Embers’ upcoming album, Shadows.

La Scintilla was a huge fortress with a bar, library/store, a computer workstation, two rooms with free foosball, a large concert space, a guest room designed for over a dozen people, multiple kitchens, storage, an entire floor of apartments, dining room, common space, laundry room, meeting room, and space left to expand.

During Lesser of Two’s tour in ’99 as well as subsequent tours by Embers, we played at many squats such as La Scintilla.

Before touring Europe for the first time, I always thought of squats as merely abandoned properties which people just occupied for shelter. As a teenager, some friends of mine and I had occupied a vacant warehouse. We brought furniture into an empty office in the warehouse and hung out there. I remember when Ash, the other guitarist on Lesser of Two’s first E.P., was kicked out of his parents’ house and began living in the warehouse.

Once his parents kicked him out he was living in the warehouse without electricity, and one of the only places we could plug in was a local park that was known as a pick-up spot for guys cruising for sex. Eventually Ash left town and Lesser of Two became a three piece with my wife, Kelly, who currently plays bass with me in Embers.

Hellarity House Circa Huh?

So I found this ancient video which is a short "documentary" about Hellarity. It's a stream of images and video interspersed with text which clearly was written by someone with only a cursory knowledge of the house, but...

Enjoy!



For more current info check out their facebook page... I guess.

Is Arson the New Way that Absentee Landlords Evict Squatters?

Someone burned down the Safehouse by setting a fire in the front stairwell. The fire department said there were people squatting at the time of the fire but that they got out safely. They also went on to say that the fire was not started as a result of any activity by the squatters in the house.

This is the second time someone has tried to burn squatters out of house and home in Oakland. There is something seriously wrong with people who hate squatters so much they are willing to kill, destroy, and put others in jeopardy.

Of course the arsonist will probably blame the squatters by some rationale like, "They made me do it." If anyone out there is willing to blame the squatters who are the victims in this situation it makes me wonder if we have lost our humanity. Housing is a basic human right. Those who think otherwise are bonkers.

OPD Say Cause Of House Fire Suspicious - News Story - KTVU San Francisco