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A focus of my practice is dedicated to receivership matters. I am routinely appointed by California courts as a receiver. Specifically, I have acted as a health & safety code receiver, a rents & profits receiver, a post-judgment receiver and a partition referee. On August 26, 2014, I moderated and participated in a speaker panel at the San Diego County Bar Center presented by the San Diego Chapter of the California Receiver Forum. We were fortunate to have the Honorable Eddie C. Sturgeon speak on the panel.

Many times, a property under the control of a health and safety code receiver is occupied by tenants. The substandard condition of the property may not be the fault of the property tenants. This situation commonly arises when the property owner/landlord is non-responsive and failing to maintain the property in a safe and habitable condition. Health and safety receiverships arise often in the context of rental properties (single-family homes or apartment buildings).

A partition referee carries out a specific role in the context of a legal dispute between multiple individuals regarding real property. One or more parties will file a lawsuit that includes a partition cause of action. One aspect of the relief sought via the partition cause of action will be the appointment of a partition referee by the court. The party may nominate one or more particular partition referees, but ultimately, it is the court's decision as to who the court will appoint as the partition referee. The partition referee almost always has one single objective: sell the subject property at issue in the lawsuit and distribute the proceeds accordingly. A related task may be to manage and preserve the property while preparing for the sale, depending on the type of property.

In January 2014, an Orange County Superior Court Judge concluded one of Mr. Griswold's Health & Safety Code receiverships after Mr. Griswold had successfully rehabilitated the single-family home back into compliance with all applicable building and safety codes. Richardson "Red" Griswold was originally nominated by the Orange County city, and appointed by the Superior Court judge under CA Health & Safety Code section 17980, et seq., in November 2012, to act as the court-appointed receiver over the single family home that had fallen into serious disrepair with multiple and severe health and safety, building, and other municipal code violations.

Section 2938 of the California Civil Code requires commercial tenants to pay their rent to the creditor of their landlord when a landlord defaults on its obligations to its creditor under certain circumstances. The general principle is that if a landlord defaults under an obligation to the creditor, the creditor can compel the tenant to make rental payments directly to it.

Richardson "Red" Griswold of Griswold Law was nominated by an Orange County city, and appointed by the Superior Court judge under CA Health & Safety Code section 17980, et seq., to act as a receiver over a single family home that had fallen into serious disrepair with multiple and severe health and safety, building, and other municipal code violations.

It is being heavily reported that the new law (SB 458) signed into effect this past week regarding short sale transactions in California will aid the short sale process and provide further protections to sellers. In short, the new law prohibits second lien-holders from going after short sale sellers for the deficiency amount between what is owed on the loan and the lesser amount the second lien-holder agrees to accept to complete the transaction. This restriction is already in place for primary lien-holder deficiencies.