The Unauthorized Randy “Duke” Cunningham Page

Mitchell Wade said he bought Cunningham's Del Mar home to use as office space and corporate headquarters for MZM Inc. in conjunction with a contract at nearby Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Almost every residential real estate development in California has CC&R's (covenants, conditions & restrictions) which prohibit the use of a personal residence for business purposes.

If such CC&R's exixted on the Duke's property he had a legal obligation, under California Real Estate Lae, to provide Mitchell Wade with written disclosure that his proposed business activities were prohibited.

Of course it is clear that Wade never really intended to use the property for business or any other purpose as he almost immediately put it on the market.

I understand what you're saying, but I think you have to look at how those CC&Rs are worded and how they're generally enforced.

I regularly do business stuff in my own home — I'll stay home some mornings and catch up on my work email and document reading and writing without frequent interruptions from people banging on my office door. Does that count as the kind of "business use" prohibited by a CC&R? I tend to doubt it. They're intended to keep you from turning a private home into a public place of business, with clients, vendors, etc, coming and going all day long and creating a public nuisance.

I no more believe Wade's lame story than you do, but it is at least •conceivable• that an outfit like his could have made legitimate business use of a residential house, as an alternative to a hotel for visiting employees who are staying for a long time if nothing else. But of course those claims were belied by his putting the house right back on the market within a month of buying it, lamely claiming that it "didn't meet his needs", as if •everyone• buys $1.6M houses sight unseen without even looking at them or checking the comps to see if the asking price is reasonable.