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A health and safety receiver is appointed by a court to address property conditions that are considered unsafe and/or unhealthy risks to the occupants and the surrounding neighbors and community. Many times, the issues center on the physical condition of the property itself. For example, faulty electrical wiring, a gas leak, or a fire hazard within a dwelling is an immediate threat to the safety of the property occupant and the neighborhood. But other times, the threat arises from the "activity" at the property. I am routinely appointed as a health and safety receiver to take control of residential properties that have become a nuisance to the neighborhood due to criminal activity (drug use and sales, storage and sale of stolen property, etc.), squatters, and disruptive conduct at the subject property. In most cases, by time the city has filed their petition for the appointment of a health and safety receiver, the neighbors have suffered with these problems for years. After my appointment as the receiver, the initial focus is to restore control over the property, removing all unauthorized occupants from the property, and in most cases, securing the property so that I can proceed to the next phase of the receivership--rehabilitating the physical deficiencies at the property and making is a safe place for the occupants and the community.

As stated in previous blog articles, Richardson "Red" Griswold is commonly appointed by courts in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles Counties to act as partition referee to sell real estate that is at the center of a dispute between two or more co-owners. Typically, after co-owners are unable to resolve their ownership disputes related to their jointly-owned property, one co-owner will file a partition lawsuit and request that the judge appoint a partition referee to act as a neutral third party to sell the property and split the proceeds between the disputing co-owners (referred to as a "partition by sale," which is the most common partition remedy).

Richardson “Red” Griswold was appointed by the Del Norte County Superior Court as the health and safety code receiver over the Town House Motel in Crescent City, California in the matter of City of Crescent City v. Sarvada Nand Hanumanthu Reddy. While he was initially appointed in November 2014, the matter has been stayed since that time because the property owner filed an appeal, challenging the legal sufficiency of the Court’s order appointing Mr. Griswold. In February 2017, the Court of Appeal (First Appellate District, Division Four) issued its written opinion, which affirmed the trial court’s order appointing Mr. Griswold as receiver. PDF of Court of Appeal's Opinion. Following the issuance of the opinion, Mr. Griswold began carrying out his court-ordered duties as the health and safety receiver over the 23-unit motel in Crescent City.

Red Griswold was recently invited to appear on "Whissel Wednesdays" on KCBQ 1170AM to speak about his experiences as a health and safety receiver and partition referee. Below are the two segments from the video/audio appearance.

Richardson "Red" Griswold was appointed as a health and safety Receiver by the San Diego County Superior Court in April 2016 to take control of a hoarder property in San Diego (Mira Mesa). Under his receivership, Red was responsible for coordinating the clear-out and rehabilitation of the dwelling. The property was in such disarray, the debris overflow could be viewed on Google Street View as well as from satellite images. Click below to view the recent news stories about this situation regarding the property, its condition, receivership status and the neighborhood history:

Griswold Law, along with co-counsel JCL Law Firm, recently achieved a class action settlement on behalf of a class of San Diego County individuals that suffered illegal treatment as motel/apartment occupants. The class members were subject to a variation of the "28-day shuffle" policy, unlawfully utilized by some motels/apartments in California. As a part of the court-approved class action settlement, we were honored to present a $75,881.50 "cy pres" donation to Alpha Project in San Diego. We presented the check to Alpha Project at the grand opening ceremony of their beautiful new project (Alpha Square) in downtown San Diego on November 18, 2015. The building will provide 203 brand-new units for the homeless population in San Diego!!

As I have written about consistently in this blog (and experienced on a daily basis in my role as a health and safety receiver), hoarding is a serious problem that affects people, neighborhoods and properties. And unfortunately, the hoarding disorder is typically under-served and misunderstood.

Co-ownership of real property sounds like a great idea. That is, until co-owners disagree. Generally, real property is considered "unique." What is meant by that is that real property is not something that can simply split in half when two co-owners disagree and want to liquidate a contested asset. In most partition actions, the remedy sought is the appointment of a partition referee, whose primary function is to sell the jointly-owned property and then distribute the proceeds with court approval.