Article Courtesy of The St.
Petersburg Times
By Susan Taylor Martin
Published October 29, 2009
Foreclosure proceedings on Alejandro Salazar's Tampa
condo had dragged on so long he finally called the bank this summer to ask
why.
Because, the bank told him, your attorney has been
fighting us for a year.
Salazar was stunned to learn that Clearwater lawyer
Bruce Harlan had been filing motions in the case since August 2008. Yet,
Salazar says, he had never met Harlan, never talked to him and certainly
never hired him.
"Is this unbelievable or what?'' he asks.
In a bizarre case, Harlan confirms that he listed
himself as Salazar's lawyer even though Salazar hadn't retained him. The
person who did, Harlan acknowledges, was a real estate agent who had
acquired the deed to Salazar's vacant condo, moved in and wanted to stall
foreclosure because she hoped to buy the unit in a short sale.
The agent? Lori Polin, named by Florida's attorney
general last year as a key player in an alleged $37 million mortgage fraud
scheme.
"I have recently found out that I have been a
victim of both Lori Polin and her associate Bruce Harlan,'' Salazar wrote
in a complaint last week to the Attorney General's Office.
"Both have been conspiring for over a year to
keep my former condo unit (where she has been living now rent-free for
over a year) from being repossessed by the mortgage holder.''
The unusual chain of events began two years ago when
Salazar fell behind in his fees to the Westchase Community Association. He
and his wife later defaulted on their mortgage, too.
"Business just dried up,'' says Salazar, 47, an
architectural designer.
Because his wife was pregnant, the couple decided to
move to her native Spain where her doctor bills would be covered by that
country's universal health care system. Salazar assumed Deutsche Bank
would quickly foreclose on the condo.
But when he returned to Tampa this summer on a
visit, he learned that the foreclosure was still pending and that Harlan
had been representing him.
"I said, 'Who is he?' and the lawyer at
Deutsche Bank said, 'You mean you don't know him?' Then, he said, 'I'd
advise you to seek counsel immediately and sort this out.' ''
Salazar hired a Tampa attorney, and the two began to
unravel what happened.
In June 2008, soon after the Salazars left town, the
Westchase Community Association foreclosed on a lien against them for $546
in unpaid fees. The association got title to the condo and two months
later deeded the unit to Polin.
It is not known if Polin paid all or part of what
the Salazars owed, a total of $2,900 with attorneys fees and other costs.
Polin did not return calls seeking comment for this story.
Though legal, it is fairly rare for a homeowners
association to foreclose and deed a unit to another individual. Records
show it has happened only one other time in Westchase in the past two
years.
At the time Polin acquired the Salazar condo, she
was about to go into foreclosure on her own condo in Westchase. She moved
into the Salazar place and leased out her home, collecting more than
$14,000 in rent, but not making mortgage payments on either property.
Instead, Polin hired Harlan to delay the foreclosure
on Salazar's condo, giving her time to try to buy it for $50,000 —
considerably less than the $137,000 the couple owed.
"I told her that before we could handle
anything on the foreclosure, we'd need to get the consent of Mr.
Salazar,'' Harlan recalls. "She said, 'No problem.' "
When he left Tampa, Salazar had authorized his
brother-in-law Ernest Lopez — who was also Polin's accountant — to
represent him on matters relating to the mortgage.
At Polin's behest, Lopez sent Harlan an e-mail
authorizing him "to speak to the lender to get the debt abated.''
Harlan says he took that to mean he would represent Salazar in the
foreclosure case even though he had never talked to Salazar, wasn't
officially hired by Lopez, and was actually paid by Polin.
"If I had to do it over again,'' Harlan says,
"I would have asked for a letter of authority from Mr. Salazar.''
Florida Bar rules of professional conduct
"prohibit a lawyer from doing anything deceitful or misrepresenting
himself, certainly as a lawyer for someone who didn't hire him,'' says
Gail Ferguson, an assistant ethics counsel.
Harlan says he didn't see any conflict of interest
in representing both Salazar and Polin, even though the short sale wanted
by Polin could leave Salazar liable for nearly $90,000 on his mortgage.
Bar rules prohibit an attorney from representing two clients "if the
representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client,''
Ferguson says.
Harlan insists he and Polin were trying to help
Salazar: "If Lori had worked a short sale, his benefit would have
just been a short sale (appearing) on his credit report, not a
foreclosure.''
In fact, a credit expert says, once a bank starts
foreclosure proceedings, as Salazar's did, a person's credit score drops
as much as if the bank had already repossessed the property.
After Salazar complained, Harlan offered to give him
$3,000 if they could proceed with the foreclosure case so Polin would have
more time to pursue a short sale.
"As I see it, I am entirely to blame for this
situation,'' Harlan said in an Aug. 31 e-mail to Salazar's lawyer. "I
will pay $3,000 from my funds to your trust account for a resolution of
this matter, which hopefully also will allow me to 'represent' Mr. Salazar
in the foreclosure action.''
Salazar refused to sign a letter of representation
and rejected the offer. Through his lawyer, he instead asked for $30,852,
the amount he said Polin and Harlan had cost him by delaying foreclosure
and driving up what he owes the bank in interest and legal fees. Unless he
was paid, Salazar said, he would go to authorities.
Harlan calls Salazar's demand "extortion.''
Earlier this month, he withdrew from the case.
A Florida lawyer since 1972, Harlan was publicly
reprimanded in 2007 and put on a year's probation for violating Bar rules
by failing to keep clients' funds separate from his own.
The Florida Real Estate Commission filed a complaint
Oct. 2 accusing Polin of fraud and other misconduct in seven 2006 real
estate deals. Polin allegedly jacked up the sales prices on homes so
participants could skim off hundreds of thousands of dollars in loan
proceeds.
Disciplinary action could include license revocation
and a fine of up to $5,000 for each count. The commission has referred the
case to state prosecutors for investigation of possible criminal activity.
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