Woman Who Opened House to the Terminally Ill Faces Eviction

SIMI VALLEY —  Isobel Oxx, who opened her Westlake Lake home to the terminally ill, lost her bid Friday to keep her house.

Texas Commerce Bank foreclosed on Oxx’s Leeward Circle dwelling in September and has been trying to force her off the property ever since. Oxx maintained Friday that she is still the rightful owner.

But Superior Court Judge Joe D. Hadden disagreed.

At that point, bank attorney John Saginaw said his client could forceably evict Oxx by the end of the week. But he offered her a face-saving alternative.

“Do you want to arrange to give us the keys, so we don’t have to go through with the eviction?” he asked Oxx.

“No,” she replied, walking out of the court. Then under her breath, she said to herself: “Give him the keys? Please!”

Oxx, who represented herself, said she needed time to decide if she will appeal Hadden’s decision.

Oxx first gained public attention in 1995, when she decided to convert her lakeside home into a care facility for up to four dying people. Her move prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit by her neighbors.

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About the same time that Oxx opened the My Father’s House facility in September 1995, she attended a seminar by anti-government Freemen follower M. Elizabeth Broderick of Palmdale. Broderick has since been convicted of passing bogus checks.

In December 1995, Oxx used one of these phony checks to try to pay off the balance on her $500,000 mortgage. GE Capitol Mortgage Services, which services the loan for Texas Commerce Bank, returned the homemade check along with a polite letter, indicating that it could not be cashed.

She has not made a payment since.

At the trial, Oxx tried to introduce evidence that the loan--and subsequent foreclosure--were fraudulent because she never received any real money, only a line of credit.

“Banks are creating money out of thin air,” Oxx said.

But Hadden found the argument preposterous. “Are you proposing a system where everybody would have to have a wheelbarrow [of money] and people who are really solvent would have to have two wheelbarrows?

“We all deal with paper credit,” he added. “We all deal with paper money. It makes our life easier.”

Many times Hadden had to stop to explain the legal proceedings to Oxx, who repeatedly tried to ask questions off the subject.

“This [case] doesn’t have anything to do with payments on a loan. This has to do with a foreclosure,” the judge said.

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Hadden was the second jurist of the day to begin hearing the case. Commissioner John H. Pattie recused himself after he disclosed his own home mortgage is also serviced by GE Capitol. Pattie said he saw no conflict of interest because the plaintiff is Texas Commerce Bank, but Oxx didn’t agree.

The bank was awarded $12,900 from Oxx, representing 172 days’ rent from the time she was asked to leave until Friday’s hearing.

Hadden set the rental value at $75 a day, even though Westlake Village real estate broker Gary Gottlieb testified that similar properties rent for as much as $105 a day. Hadden said that because Gottlieb didn’t get an inside view of Oxx’s house, he couldn’t compare it to other homes on the lake.

Oxx, whose last patients left the home in December, complained that she didn’t have enough time to interview witnesses and prepare for her defense.

Saginaw said her five months’ notice is much more than usual in eviction cases, which are typically resolved in 60 days. The bank moved slowly, he said, in consideration of the patients.

Although she lost title in September, Oxx continues to be licensed to run an in-home congregate care facility. Betty Smith, supervisor for the Department of Health Services, said in light of Friday’s judgment the department will reevaluate her license.

Oxx said as recently as two weeks ago that she hoped to reopen My Father’s House.