Kan

BACKGROUND

In July 2007, Lindsay Kan executed a first note for $516,000, secured by a deed of trust on real property in Stevenson Ranch (the property). The same day, he executed a second note in the amount of $64,500, also secured by a deed of trust on the property. Both trust deeds named Guild Mortgage Company as the lender, Guild Administration Corp. as the trustee, and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) as the beneficiary acting as nominee for the lender, its successors, and assigns. More than two years later—based on what is characterized in appellant’s opening brief as “spectacularly unsound and specious advice”—Kan recorded two instruments that purported to “modify” the deeds of trust to “correctly reflect” an indebtedness of zero dollars. The instruments stated the deeds of trust were “modified to eliminate any further payments, [and] to reflect a status of ‘paid as agreed.’” Shortly afterward, PCYA Trust, of which Kan is the trustee, recorded two documents labeled “full reconveyance,” purporting to reconvey both trust deeds to Lindsay Kan and declare them “void at inception.” Kan then deeded the property to the PCYA Trust. In October 2010, in spite of…