The Creative Investor - Indebted Owners Sign Over House Titles to 'Rescue Service'

By Sandra Fleishman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 25, 2004; Page A01

When Idriis Bilaal, 77, got a foreclosure notice about a year ago, all he could think about was how he could save the home where he had been born, a run-down red-brick rowhouse in Northeast Washington.

After a series of sleepless nights and failed attempts to find money, Bilaal accepted an offer from one of a host of "foreclosure rescue specialists" who had called or left fliers and business cards as soon as the notice of foreclosure was published.

He signed some papers provided by an ex-con and retired minister named Calvin N. Baltimore -- without wearing his reading glasses, he says.

Soon after, to his horror, Bilaal says, he realized this wasn't a loan -- he had in fact signed away the title to his 100-year-old house to Washington

businessman Vincent L. Abell, who was convicted years ago for his role in a huge real estate fraud in the 1980s.

The house recently was appraised for $255,000, but Bilaal received less than $20,000, according to his lawyers -- the $7,000 that he had fallen behind on his mortgage, plus $10,000 cash. But Abell's company did not agree to pay off or assume Bilaal's mortgage, so Bilaal remains responsible for those $714-a-month payments. On top of that, he began making rent payments of $500 a month to Abell's company.
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