Foreclosure home goes to pieces

The Sun newspaper in San Bernardino County, Calif., reports that a resident in Ontario, Calif., was selling pieces of her Ontario, Calif., home on the Internet. The house is in a foreclosure process and the owner had reportedly entered into a Mills Act contract with the city that reduces property taxes in exchange for the preservation and rehabilitation of the property.

A Superior Court judge granted the city of Ontario a warrant to lock the owner out of the home "for stripping it of historic fixtures to sell on the Web site craigslist.com," the newspaper reported.

Cathy Walstrom, principal planner for the city, said in the article, "A number of the features were advertised for sale online -- fixtures, baseboards, tile, grates, a sink, almost the whole house."

But the owner, Kim Shewalter, 46, told the newspaper that she only removed items that she had personally added to the historic home, built in 1935. "I have to give my house back to the bank, and I want to be sure I recoup a little bit of my money," she said in the article.

"How can they say the landscaping I put in I can't remove?" She also reportedly removed cupboards that she had installed in 2003.

An interesting legal issue with foreclosure properties and home sales in general: The city attorney says in the article that "California law states if you fix something permanently to a structure, it becomes part of the real estate. For instance, if you install a garden trellis that's drilled into cement, it doesn't mean you can rip it out and take it with you because you paid for it. It becomes part of the property."

The home's owner has been involved in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings since October, and the latest meeting of creditors was scheduled Jan. 10, according to court records.

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