Home that couple allegedly squatted in is up for auction
Chris and Robin Duncan have a pretrial scheduled for the same day the Newport Coast house will go on the auction block.
BY SARAH PETERS sarah.peters@latimes.com
An auction for the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath Newport Coast home allegedly illegally occupied for four months by a couple targeting foreclosed Orange County homes is set for Feb. 8.
10 Hidden Pass, a 7,925 squarefoot lot tucked into a secluded Newport Coast gated community, is set to go to auction at the Orange County courthouse. The default amount is listed at $2,602,252, and the original mortgage amount, recorded in 2007, was for $2,095,000, according to public records.
Chris and Robin Duncan, 42 and 36, respectively, are scheduled to appear at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach for a pretrial hearing on the same day the house will be auctioned, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The two were arrested on Jan. 5 by Newport Beach police and released from the Orange County Central Jail each on bail of $25,000 on Jan. 13, said district attorney spokeswoman Farrah Emami.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 22.
The pair are accused of drafting a fraudulent lease for the property, breaking into the home and moving in illegally, putting utilities under their name to give the false appearance of tenancy, and changing the locks on the property to keep an appraiser sent by the property owner from entering the home, Emami said.
In California, a trespasser may gain the legal title of a property, called adverse possession, if the occupation is continuously held for five years and the occupant has paid off all state, county or municipal taxes, according to information from the state’s website.
However, the district attorney has reason to believe that the Duncans do not have legal claim to the property.
“Legitimate adverse possession happens when the property is truly abandoned,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Pete Pierce.
Not only did the Duncans try to keep the actual owner, Le Suong, from putting up the property for a short sale when they denied the appraiser access, the duo have never paid taxes on the property, Pierce said.
“The Duncans and their scam is symptomatic of the current residential real estate crisis, which is nationwide,” Pierce said. “Because of the real estate collapse, there are an unprecedented number of foreclosed homes and unprecedented number of vacant properties.”
That leads to cases involving adverse possession happening in Orange County, Pierce said.
In another case, Blair Christopher Hanloh, 46, of Long Beach, was charged June 4, 2010, with stealing more than $3.5 million in a fraudulent scheme of real property theft and renting out houses he did not own, according to an archived county news release.
