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Aeon Financial and its law firm operate out of several mail drops in the Chicago area. (Debbie Cenziper / The WashingtON Post)
The firm that threatened to foreclose on hundreds of struggling D.C. homeowners is a mystery: It lists no owners, no local office, no Web site.
Aeon Financial is incorporated in Delaware, operates from mail-drop boxes in Chicago and is represented by a law firm with an address at a 7,200-square-foot estate on a mountainside near Vail, Colo.
Yet no other tax lien purchaser in the District has been more aggressive in recent years, buying the liens placed on properties when owners fell behind on their taxes, then charging families thousands in fees to save their homes from foreclosure.
Aeon has been accused by the city’s attorney general of predatory and unlawful practices and has been harshly criticized by local judges for overbilling. All along, the firm has remained shrouded in corporate secrecy as it pushed to foreclose on more than 700 houses in every ward of the District.
“Who the heck is Aeon?” said David Chung, a local lawyer who said he wasn’t notified that he owed $575 in back taxes on his Northwest Washington condominium until he received a notice from Aeon. “They said, ‘We bought the right to take over your property. If you want it back — pay us.’ ”
“There was significant evidence of padding of the bills, charging an excessive number of hours for literally doing nothing,” Nickles recently told The Post. “They gouged the hell out of poor people.”
And more, which includes my blog on Realneo, " In Cleveland, Lily Miller grew so frustrated with tax lien investors that she started blogging [3]in 2008, criticizing government officials for allowing investors to “destroy lives and neighborhoods.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/12/08/local-laws-do-little-to-protect-homeowners/ [4]
MUCH more on Aeon Financial here http://realneo.us/blogs/lmiller [5]