After suing her, the city of Sacramento tried to save a woman’s house. Here’s the latest

Linda Siegrist’s ability to stay in her North Sacramento home remains uncertain as the decision to approve its sale sits before a judge and backroom conversations take place to work out a deal that would keep the sale from happening.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi on May 17 issued a tentative ruling that would allow a Bay Area company to sell the home. It’s up to a judge because the city in 2017 sued Siegrist over a broken down truck and other items that were in the driveway at the time. In 2021, with the code violations still present, the city asked a judge to allow the Bay Area Receivership Group (BARG) to take over total control of the house.

BARG charged Siegrist $248,000 — mostly for things like emails and phone calls — despite never performing any serious renovations on the home. To recoup that money, the firm put the house up for auction and asked a judge to approve the sale of the house for $220,000 to Bay Area real estate agent Alex Lehr. Despite issuing a tentative ruling approving it May 17, in an unusual move, Sueyoshi has not yet issued a final ruling.

Siegrist — who has lived in the home her whole life, and now lives there with her husband Bruce — became emotional in the courtroom May 18. She sat at a table in her wheelchair, just inches from the BARG officials, wearing a floral bucket hat and holding a white plastic bag of documents.

“In my situation and condition, this would be a real hardship,” said Linda Siegrist, 69, referring to the possibility of losing her home. “We’ve been done wrongly here ... it’s been a nightmare.”

Siegrist, a double amputee in a wheelchair, suffers from diabetes and kidney issues. Her doctors are trying to figure out why she needs blood transfusions every two weeks, Siegrist said. She has frequent medical procedures and does not want to move, she has said.

Ahead of the May 18 hearing, the city submitted a filing to the court alleging BARG had overcharged Siegrist at least $61,000 in fees, and asking the judge to halt the sale. The city attached a September investigation of BARG fees in The Sacramento Bee, featuring Siegrist and other homeowners across the state, to its filing.

For example BARG charged Siegrist $200 for a 3-mile drive, and $742 for employees to read articles about another Sacramento resident in receivership “for insight into media’s potential handling of any press regarding this case.”

Sueyoshi said if the city wanted to oppose the fees it should have done so in November 2022, when BARG submitted them.

“What prevented the city from being able to timely oppose, according to code, that motion filed in November 2022?” Sueyoshi, who has not been the judge for the entire case, said during the May 18 hearing.

Sueyoshi went on to ask why the city has not raised concerns about the charges in the approximately 170-page court filing they submitted in November.

Kevin Kundinger, an attorney for the city, said the city did not review the fees until after November, despite The Bee story that published in September.

“There’s legally nothing that kept city from doing that,” Kundinger said. “What I can say is it’s after that point the city started going through the bills on its own to see how these numbers kind of came to be … all i can say is that the review of the billings did not occur until after that ... I was not aware whether the court had reviewed these bills the same way or had taken any issue with it or had simply taken word from receiver that these were all necessary billings. The receiver is an agent of court not an agent of city.”

To complicate matters, Siegrist has no lawyer. In 2018 her previous lawyer signed an agreement requiring her to perform certain work on the house by a deadline, which she failed to do, the judge’s tentative ruling stated. Siegrist said her lawyer never informed her of that agreement, which is why she fired him.

Siegrist submitted an appeal, without an attorney, and the court dismissed it, the ruling states. The city confirmed all code violations were clear in April 2022, according to city records, but BARG continued to charge fees.

BARG wrote in a court filing in May that Lehr, the proposed buyer, would allow the Siegrists to stay in their house as renters. But BARG has also taken recent steps toward evicting them, court documents show.

After the May 18 hearing, representatives from BARG, the city attorney’s office and the Siegrists met at City Hall. While the city attorney was in attendance, there is no legal obligation for anyone from the city to be involved in this negotiation, city spokesman Tim Swanson said. The Bee was not allowed at this meeting. The Siegrists later told The Bee that BARG officials said rather than sell the house, they would accept a payment from the Siegrists of $225,000.

BARG spokesman Gary Hanauer wrote in a May 31 email that some of the information the Siegrists’ provided about the meeting was inaccurate. He did not elaborate.

“All discussions are confidential until and if a resolution is finalized and approved by the Court,” Hanauer wrote.

Bruce Siegrist said Tuesday that the couple would use money loaned to them by a friend to cover the BARG bill.

The Siegrists then plan to sell a house they own in East Sacramento, which they’d previously planned to gift to their daughter, in order to pay the friend back, Bruce Siegrist said.

The deal has not been finalized.

“The parties met at the (city attorney’s office) in an effort to find a mutually satisfactory resolution that does not require the sale of the Siegrist home and does not result in the removal of the Siegrist family,” Swanson said in an email May 19. “The meeting was productive, and the receiver and the Siegrist family will continue to communicate on the terms of the resolution.”

BARG said it wants to find a resolution to satisfy all parties.

“We remain hopeful for a resolution that helps satisfy the various parties, while mindful of the challenges involved as the process moves forward,” BARG spokesman Hanauer said in an email May 22. “The Bay Area Receivership Group is currently engaged in ongoing discussions, with more meetings expected in the future.”

It’s unclear if the city will continue to recommend BARG to take over houses with code violations in the future. The city is doing a review of all receivership companies, with applications due at the end of this month.