Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

If you were already foreclosed on, good luck with that. If only you had sought legal help beforehand.

Here's what Miller & Starr's authoritative treatise on California real property has to say on the subject of the trustor's (borrower's) rights after an improper trustee sale. Only the most important and general paragraph is quoted, and the citations to cases are omitted:

"A sale of the collateral by an exercise of the power of sale in violation of the statutory limitations on the power is invalid. When a beneficiary wrongfully commences a foreclosure by the private power of sale, the trustor may be able to enjoin the trustee from selling the property, but the beneficiary would not be liable for abuse of process because no judicial proceedings are involved. Courts will set aside a foreclosure sale when there has been fraud, when the sale has been improperly, unfairly, or unlawfully conducted, or when there has been such a mistake that it would be inequitable to let it stand. The trustor can challenge the foreclosure sale and successfully set it aside even though an injunction has been denied and the trustor failed to obtain a stay of the foreclosure pending an appeal. The trustor can avoid the sale where experienced bidders conspire with each other to join together in one bid so as to eliminate competition and lower the sale price. Also where a new trustee is appointed before the sale and the old trustee mistakenly holds the sale, the trustor can set it aside. In contrast, where, through error, a trustee is mistakenly substituted out, but in good faith conducts the foreclosure proceedings and sale, the sale can be validated by reformation of the purported substitution, in the exercise of the court's equitable powers."

If your case fits any of the recognized categories for an erroneous, void or voidable foreclosure, and you can pay reasonable attorney fees, I'd be willing to consider your case, and I would not charge for travel to Monterey County. I am not interested in a long shot pursuit of a novel legal theory such as (for example) the lender's inability to produce the original promissory note. Also, I cannot take on any more free or cut-rate projects.

I'd be curious to determine why these other attorneys have told you that the lender did not have legal authority to initiate and conduct a trustee's sale. (Non-judicial foreclosure.) If you are relying on a "where's the note defense, you are wasting your time.