Supervisors authorized the tax collector to sell a long-delinquent home on 32nd Avenue, a step neighbors see as a way out of a yearlong standoff, as the city attorney seeks a court order against two people accused of forging deeds to claim it.
By Staff Reporter
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized the city’s tax collector to sell at public auction a vacant Sea Cliff house whose property taxes have gone unpaid for five years, and whose ownership the city says two people tried to take through a string of forged deeds.
The resolution, File No. 261002, allows the Treasurer and Tax Collector to sell the property at 250 32nd Avenue, Assessor’s Block 1391, Lot 014. It cleared the board’s Budget and Finance Committee before Tuesday’s vote.
No auction date has been set. Eric Manke, a spokesman for the treasurer’s office, told The San Francisco Standard that the office would begin notifying lienholders and others who claim debts tied to the house, and that he expected the sale to take place before the end of the year. More than $342,000 in taxes, dating to July 2021, is owed on the four-bedroom house, The Standard reported. If someone pays the bill, Mr. Manke said, “the sale stops immediately.”
The lawsuit
The vote is the latest turn in a case that has drawn in the city attorney, the police, the district attorney and the Assessor-Recorder.
In September, City Attorney David Chiu sued Brandon Aadee and Diana Peng in San Francisco Superior Court, accusing them of “a deliberate and sustained scheme to unlawfully take ownership” of the house using forged and altered deeds. According to the city, the home was owned from 2013 by Wei Wang and her husband; Ms. Wang later left the country and stopped paying property taxes.
The city’s complaint says that in July 2025 Mr. Aadee recorded a deed purporting to transfer the property from Ms. Wang to himself, and that he and Ms. Peng then recorded eight deeds over 13 months transferring the house back and forth between themselves. At least five, the city says, contain forged notary signatures, fraudulent stamps or attestations altered after notarization, and several notaries have confirmed that their signatures or seals were forged or misused. Some deeds claimed an exemption from transfer taxes on the ground of a “divorce” or “dissolution of marriage”; the city says there is no record that the two were ever married.
The city also alleges that the pair tried to sell the house below market value in a quick transaction. “Defendants are effectively trying to steal a house and sell it to make millions in profit,” Mr. Chiu said when he filed the suit.
The suit is brought under California’s Unfair Competition Law and asks the court to void the deeds and bar further activity. It seeks civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation, according to The Standard.
Mr. Aadee and Ms. Peng have not publicly responded to the allegations. Neither appeared at a September hearing at which Judge Charles F. Haines issued a temporary restraining order barring them from selling or transferring the property or recording further documents with the Assessor-Recorder, The Standard reported. The Standard said this week that they could not be reached for comment. Judge Haines is scheduled to hear the city’s request for a preliminary injunction on Friday.
Neighbors and the police
Neighbors have complained for more than a year about visitors at all hours, break-ins and off-hours construction at the house, which they suspect is tied to illegal activity, according to The Standard. One neighbor, Cameron Will, filed a complaint with the Department of Police Accountability on Oct. 16 over officers’ handling of an unregistered van at the property, the paper reported. Another, Whitney Lynn, said the department’s engagement had improved markedly in recent weeks, and a plainclothes officer has been assigned to check on the property.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has said her office is investigating but has not filed charges. She told ABC7 this month that prosecutors must be sure they can prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt because they “only get one shot at that apple,” SFist reported. Her office said it “cannot discuss the details of any ongoing investigation,” according to The Standard.
An unusual use of a routine power
Tax-default auctions are a standard tool for California counties, but San Francisco’s handling of this one is not routine. State law allows a county to sell a property once it has been tax-defaulted for five years, and the sale requires the Board of Supervisors’ approval. San Francisco typically waits until a property has gone nine years without payment, according to SFist, which cited The San Francisco Chronicle.
Acting sooner here offers the city a path that does not depend on the outcome of the fraud lawsuit or a criminal case: a tax sale would establish a new legal owner, which could eventually allow the removal of anyone occupying the house without a legal right to be there. The trade-off is that the original owner, who the city says was the victim of the alleged scheme, could lose the property over the unpaid taxes unless the debt is settled first, although state law allows parties of interest to claim any sale proceeds beyond what is owed.
The case also points to a structural feature of California’s property records: a county recorder’s role in accepting documents is largely ministerial, so a deed that appears properly notarized is generally recorded, and disputes over fraud are resolved afterward in court. “Real estate fraud is a serious matter for law enforcement and the courts,” Assessor-Recorder Joaquín Torres said when the suit was filed.
Friday’s hearing will determine whether the restrictions on Mr. Aadee and Ms. Peng remain in place while the case proceeds. The auction, if it goes forward, would follow within weeks.
