A chief-signed title-cloud reciting a determination already made entered the property record 26 days after the order, with no produced inspection predicate behind it.
When a city decides a building is substandard and starts a legal process against it, the law says an inspector has to actually inspect the building and write down what is wrong before that process can begin. Here, the city recorded a public notice against the property’s title — the kind of cloud on title that any future buyer or lender would see — signed by the division chief and notarized on April 25, 2023. EX.10 That notice flatly states the city had already inspected and already decided the building was substandard, and that the owner had already been told. M122 M124 But the complete file the city later closed the request on contains no finished inspection and no written list of specific problems behind that decision. R.25-3549 R.26-1549 There is also a timing oddity: the order it is built on is dated April 12, M124 yet the title notice was not actually put on record at the county until May 8 — 26 days later. EX.10 The recording date and the notary date only became visible by looking at the actual scanned image from the county recorder, because that page is a picture and its stamps do not show up in a plain text search — and that recorder image is a separate county exhibit, not part of the 631-page file the city itself produced. R.26-1965
Bottom line: the city put a chief-signed cloud on the property’s title saying it had inspected and decided the building was substandard, recorded it 26 days after the order it rests on, EX.10 M124 and the file it closed as complete shows no finished inspection or written findings behind that decision. R.25-3549 R.26-1549The recorded Notice of Pending Enforcement Proceeding or Action EX.10 — Sacramento County Recorder Doc 202305081060, recorded 05/08/2023 at 4:45:14 PM — is signed by Peter Lemos as Code and Housing Enforcement Chief and notarized by Consuelo Ramos on 04/25/2023. EX.10 By its own terms it recites that the City “has determined that a substandard and/or dangerous building(s) is present” and that the owner “has been so notified,” placing a public encumbrance on the Baritell Trust title. M122 Two dates and one gap define the instrument: the Notice and Order carries an 04/12/2023 face date M124; the instrument did not enter the real-property record until 05/08/2023 — 26 days later EX.10; and the produced file contains no completed inspection or condition-specific determination predicate before the signing. R.25-3549 R.26-1549
The City’s own code makes an inspection-based determination the first step before substandard or dangerous-building proceedings begin. SCC §8.100.700 SCC §8.96.130 On the Sacramento County Recorder’s record, a chief-signed title-cloud determination entered the public property record without the inspection-and-determination foundation the City’s own code requires — and 26 days after the order it implements. The recording date and notary date became visible only on visual review of the image from the county recorder — the recorder stamp and notary date return zero full-text hits across the City’s 631 pages.
Note on the sample form: The City’s production at M122 stacks a blank “***SAMPLE***” form (signatory “Willie Harris, Principal Building Inspector”) above the executed copy for Case 23-009185 (signed Peter Lemos, Code and Housing Enforcement Chief). The executed, signed and recorded version — Lemos signature, 04/25/2023 notary, 05/08/2023 recorder stamp — appears only on the county recorder exhibit. EX.10 An unsigned blank copy EX.9 is also in the produced materials.
The City’s code commences substandard-building proceedings only after the building official “inspected or caused to be inspected” the building. SCC §8.100.700 The dangerous-building chapter uses the same inspection-before-proceedings structure. SCC §8.96.130 The state-law parallel runs alongside it. HSC §17980(c)(1) The state statute also governs the recording of enforcement notices against title. HSC §17985 SCC §8.100.730 Both the City’s code and the state statute treat the inspection-and-determination as the jurisdictional predicate before proceedings and any subsequent recording step.
The recorded Notice of Pending Enforcement Proceeding recites that the City “has determined that a substandard and/or dangerous building(s) is present” and that the owner “has been so notified.” M122 The Notice and Order face page repeats the same recital: the Chief Building Official “has caused to be inspected and has determined that the building(s)” are in sub-standard and/or dangerous condition under Chapters 8.96 and/or 8.100. M124 Both instruments recite a determination already made, not a determination to be made.
The recorder-stamped instrument shows Peter Lemos’s signature as Code and Housing Enforcement Chief; the notary block shows Consuelo Ramos (Notary Public, Sacramento County, Commission #2346380) notarizing that signature on 04/25/2023. EX.10 The Chief title is an authorized signer position; the point here is the predicate behind the representation, not the signer’s authority — the signature-authority gap on the order itself is a separate theory. Card 4
Across the closed-as-complete productions the produced file shows no completed inspection report and no condition-specific findings before the instrument. R.25-3549 R.26-1549 The single pre-order observation is a neighbor-lot exterior glance, not a completed determination. Card 1 Card 2 Card 5 Nothing in the produced record bridges the gap between the neighbor-lot observation and the City’s own recital that it “has caused to be inspected and has determined.”
On the May production, one page stacks a blank “***SAMPLE***” form above the case-specific block: Case 23-009185, Jackie Baritell Trust, bearing Peter Lemos’s printed name and title with a blank signature line and empty notary/recorder fields. M122 The executed, signed and recorded version — the actual Lemos signature, the 04/25/2023 notary, and the 05/08/2023 recorder stamp — appears only on the image-only county recorder exhibit. EX.10 An unsigned blank copy is also in the produced case materials. EX.9
The City’s own code makes an inspection-based determination the first step before substandard or dangerous-building proceedings begin SCC §8.100.700 SCC §8.96.130; the recorded instrument M122 and the order it implements M124 both recite that the determination was already made; Lemos signed that recorded representation as Chief and Ramos notarized it on 04/25/2023 EX.10; the County Recorder stamped it on 05/08/2023, 26 days after the order’s face date EX.10 M124; and the produced file contains no completed inspection or condition-specific findings predicate behind any of it. R.25-3549 R.26-1549 The signature, the 04/25/2023 notary, the 05/08/2023 recording, the Doc# and fee are facts of the County Recorder’s record, which is not part of the City’s 631-page production; the City’s own production carries the blank-template, printed-name, and cover-letter facts. M122 M124 M123
The strongest City response is that the April 25 recorded notice was not the authority to issue the April 12 order — it was a later recording step; the Chief had positional authority to sign it; recorder timing is independent of service and appeal deadlines; and the code requires an inspection, not necessarily a full interior inspection. If the April 25 instrument is only a later recording step, it cannot supply the missing inspection predicate for the April 12 order — the file still needs the earlier determination, and it contains none. R.25-3549 R.26-1549 The produced file shows a neighbor-lot glance, not a completed inspection. Card 1 Card 2 Card 5 The City has already closed its CPRA production as complete, so producing the predicate now would contradict that closure. Card 47