Re: Attorney Negligence

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On 2/13/05, Larry Magnus wrote:
> Attorney Negligence:
>
> The questions I have are:
> 1) Do I have a suit for negligence against the
> attorney?
> 2) Since the attorney is in California and I am in
> Texas would I file suit in California or Texas?
> 3) Would it be better to file a complaint with the
> California Bar first and get the results of that and then
> file the suit against the attorney or does the order of
> these two events matter?
>
> The case:
> Before his death my father and stepmother placed a piece of
> property in a Living Trust. The property is in
> California. My father was the pre-deceased trustor and
> stepmother the Co-trustor and trustee. Both are now
> deceased. I am the beneficiary of the property. Over the
> last year, the successor trustee refused to distribute the
> property according to the trust claiming he is a
> beneficiary and by not making the mortgage payments forced
> the property into foreclosure proceedings. The trustee
> used the foreclosure as negotiation tool try to mediate
> money from the trust that he is not entitled to. Due to
> the privacy laws, I was blocked from information from the
> mortgage company, Real Estate Agent, collection company and
> later the title company (since I was not the trustee) but
> eventually I was able to make up the back payments on the
> property to get the property out of foreclosure. As soon
> as I got the property out of foreclosure, the trustee sold
> the property (which he had no right under the trust) for
> well below the market value of the property. The trustee
> refused to disclose any information about the sale and I
> only saw the sales agreement after the property closed
> escrow. The trustee allowed his father to submit
> fraudulent charges against the trust that were paid out of
> the escrow. Just prior to the sale of the property, the
> trustee filed for bankruptcy leaving me with no recourse
> against the trustee.
>
> The attorney:
> The attorney was in on what was happening since the
> trustee’s refusal to distribute the property. I maintained
> close communications with the attorney to let him know the
> events that I learned so nothing that happened in the
> entire case was a surprise to him. He could have stopped
> the loss by filing to have the trustee removed and he did
> not. He could have filed an injunction preventing the sale
> and he did not. He could have filed for Judicial
> Determination and did one day before the sale of the
> property. He only told me of his intent to do nothing with
> stopping the sale with less than 40 hours to close of
> escrow on the property. That left me no time to fire him
> and find another attorney who could come up to speed on the
> case and file to have the sale stopped. Repeatedly I ask
> to have the trustee removed and at times he promised he had
> the paperwork at the courthouse. Repeatedly I ask to have
> a him file for Judicial Determination and he did not. When
> I learned the trustee intended to sell the property, I was
> demanding that the trustee distribute the property
> according to the trust and the attorney did nothing. He
> knew the sale of the property would be financially
> devastating and the trustee was bankrupt so I could not
> recover from the trustee’s actions. To me this attorney's
> negligence in allowing the trustee to take the actions the
> trustee did with no actions or attempts to stop it by the
> attorney (even at my demands) had a great financial loss to
> me. When I saw I was not going to get any support from
> this attorney, I fought the sale up to the last day in
> every legal way I could think of. This attorney does have
> malpractice insurance.
>
> To me it is an incredible breach of ethics.
>
> This information is all documented in letters and emails.
>
> How do I find attorney that will take this kind of case?
>
> Where do I start to clean up this mess?