Metro Detroit dad says probate scandal nearly cost him $70,000

(WXYZ) - The 7 Investigators have been exposing a disturbing pattern of some public officials and real estate brokers taking over estates after someone dies, leaving the rightful heirs with very little.

Here’s what’s been happening: Real Estate Broker Ralph Roberts has teamed up with some Attorney General-appointed lawyers called Public Administrators. The Public Administrators and Roberts’ company, Probate Asset Recovery, bill the estates for thousands of dollars, plus Roberts gets real estate commissions when they sell the homes that are at stake in the estates after someone dies. The Public Administrators then take legal fees from the estate.

“I find properties. I believe there’s a benefit, so I then tell a public administrator, here’s the benefit there,” Roberts told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo in November 2016.

Cecil St. Pierre was one of those Attorney General-appointed Public Administrators. He’s also the Warren City Council President.

“They messed with the wrong family this time,” said Petar Georgievski. When Georgievski’s mother passed away last August, she used a Quit Claim Deed to give her Warren house to her son.

Georgievski says he later found out that money was owed for a small loan on the home, and his lawyer tried to address it with the bank. But without warning, Georgievski says the house was sold at Sheriff’s Sale.  (Click to Continue)

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Metro Detroit dad says probate scandal nearly cost him $70,000

Guardianships: A Broken Trust: Savitt's Home, $308,000 Staves Off Auction

In 2011, just before the Batson case, [Elizabeth] Savitt became a registered professional guardian. Savitt and Colin’s financial picture — replete with foreclosures, debt and liens — started to improve.

Savitt’s path from tennis professional to professional guardian didn’t require much heavy lifting. She completed 40 hours of training, put up a $50,000 bond for her firm Savitt Guardians and submitted to credit and criminal background checks.

The Department of Elder Affairs registered her as a professional guardian in 2011 despite a pending foreclosureon a home she owns in Delray Beach.

Savitt passed the credit check after telling the department that she was in a dispute with her lender and wasn’t past due because of “neglect or oversight.” It wasn’t until November 2014 that her dispute was settled with ajudgment of foreclosure, sending the house to the auction block.

Elizabeth Savitt

Six days before the home was to be auctioned off in March, she came up with $308,000 to satisfy a delinquent home equity loan, court records show. She didn’t make payments for several years on the $250,000 loan and rented out the home for a portion of that period.

Vassallo found the timing of the $308,000 payment suspicious. “I want to know if any of my father’s money went to her foreclosure case,” he said. When he told Judge French his concerns, a May 21 hearing was abruptly ended.

Despite the delinquencies, Savitt said she paid off the home equity loan on her property before the note was due. “I do not know how many professional guardians are debt free as I am,” she said.

Most of Savitt’s cases are in front of Judge French. Two of French’s ex-wives have described Colin and French as good friends who once planned a vacation together. The two judges have lunch together frequently in Delray Beach.

Families say they are also frustrated by the lack of transparency in the guardianship cases of their loved ones. It's not unusual for key documents regarding the guardian's activities to be sealed.

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Guardianships:  A Broken Trust:  Savitt's Home, $308,000 Staves Off Auction

Danny Tate Still Trapped by Conservatorship

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

More than five years after finally winning release from a hotly contested conservatorship, singer songwriter Danny Tate has once again gone into bankruptcy in attempt to regain access to royalties he hasn't seen for years.

Tate sought bankruptcy protection in federal court in Kentucky in the Fall after a Nashville judge summarily rejected his attempt to recoup at least a portion of royalties ranging from an estimated $12,000 to $20,000 a year.

The royalties have been going to Nashville attorney Michael Hoskins who represented Tate in his efforts to escape a conservatorship first imposed by a Davidson Probate judge in 2007.

Hoskins already has gained title to Tate's Belle Meade home, which was sold off at auction.

In a recent filing in Davidson Circuit Court, Tate's attorneys argued that the attachments placed on Tate's assets and income were driving him into homelessness.

Noting that the garnishment was imposed on Feb. 12, 2013, Tate's lawyers said 100 per cent of his royalties from BMI music have been taken away, leaving him " little or nothing to for his personal family or household needs."

They asked that the garnishment be reduced to $500 a month.

Hoskins billed Tate $164,087.92 plus 10 per cent interest for his services starting on July 27, 2009.

Tate's new lawyers, Mark B. Reagan and Stephen Young, had charged that the amount being taken from Tate exceeded legal limits and that his contract with Hoskins was invalid because the songwriter lacked the legal authority to sign a contract while under a conservatorship.

They charged $26,323.44 had been withheld from Tate in excess of the legal limits.

Hoskins, acting as his own attorney, argued that the legal limits referred to by Tate's attorneys applied to wages, not royalties. He also contended that Tate had "acquiesced" to the prior garnishments and lost the right to contest them.

In a decision issued following an Aug. 28 hearing Circuit Judge Joseph P. Binkley Jr. ruled in Hoskins favor, concluding that BMI was not Tate's employer and that he had indeed acquiesced to the ongoing garnishment and "is barred from challenging all prior disbursements."

He wrote that Tate had 20 days after the attachment was issued in March of 2013 to challenge the action.

"The doctrine of acqiescence is applicable in this case," Binkley wrote, adding that "BMI is not his employer."

In a subsequent letter to the court, BMI attorney Richard A. Garza wrote," Please be advised that BMI intends to place a withhold against the debtor's accounts and await further instruction from the bankruptcy trustee."

Without his knowledge Tate was placed in the 2007 conservatorship by his brother. Subsequently he was ordered to pay not only his own legal bills but also his brother's.

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Danny Tate Still Trapped by Conservatorship