An elderly woman with dementia lost her home in a questionable sale that ended in foreclosure—and left her life’s memories heartbreakingly tossed out in the yard.
An elderly woman with dementia lost her home in a questionable sale that ended in foreclosure—and left her life’s memories heartbreakingly tossed out in the yard.
An elderly woman with dementia lost her home in a questionable sale that ended in foreclosure—and left her life’s memories heartbreakingly tossed out in the yard.
FORT WORTH, Texas —
The photos and mementos lay in the grass — a young soldier in uniform staring back from decades past, a school scrapbook filled with achievements, a young woman and her parents smiling broadly.
These were the remnants of Diana Aycox’s life, discarded in a huge pile in her former front yard. The documents told the story of a woman now lost to dementia and her home sold out from under her.
Aycox’s former neighbor, Deanna Torres, discovered the discarded mementos and salvaged what she could.
“Personally, I would like answers,” Torres told WFAA. “To me, it’s a disgrace to a human being.”
What happened to Diana Aycox and her home shows how the legal system can sometimes fall short in protecting vulnerable people, and how those shortcomings can have serious consequences.
“Unfortunately, it’s not abnormal,” said Alisha Melvin, an attorney who practices real estate and guardianship law. “It is what we see a lot of times when it comes to elder abuse, especially for those who don’t have anyone looking out for them.”
In August 2023, Aycox sold her home to boarding house operator Ireka Hamilton for $120,000, despite Hamilton acknowledging in court records that Aycox was “mentally incapacitated.”
Aycox was living in one of Hamilton’s boarding homes at the time of the sale.
“Diana did not know what she was signing, she could not understand what she was signing,” Andrea Casanova, Aycox’s court-appointed guardian, told WFAA in an interview last summer.
Casanova filed a lawsuit to reclaim Aycox’s home, and in January, it appeared she was poised to win. Hamilton had signed an agreement to return the house.
However, deed records show Hamilton had taken out a $103,000 loan against the property and defaulted on it. The lender foreclosed and sold the house on Feb. 4 for $171,000.
Court filings give no indication that Casanova had made inquiries about the status of the loan on the property.
“I know the appraisal district taxes are due, and that is of a huge concern to me,” Casanova wrote to Hamilton in a Jan. 30 email, which was included as an exhibit in filings with the court.
However, records show the property was already in the foreclosure process and would soon be sold.
Real estate and guardianship attorney Alisha Melvin, who reviewed the case records, told WFAA that Casanova should have contacted the lien holder long before the foreclosure occurred.
Melvin said that now it’s unlikely the courts will undo the foreclosure and sale.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” she said.
By mid-February, neighbors told WFAA they saw workers throwing Aycox’s personal belongings into the yard.
“Her dad’s discharge papers were out in the yard or the street. I mean, original discharge papers,” Torres said. “And my daughters and granddaughter and grandson and I came out here and got what we could.”
Torres also found Aycox’s mother’s original papers from when she emigrated to the United States from Japan and married Aycox’s father.
Neighbors told WFAA they informed Casanova both in writing and by phone about what was happening at the house. They say they were surprised she didn’t take immediate action to protect Aycox’s personal effects.
Torres told WFAA that this week, Casanova sent her legal assistant to pick up a box of Aycox’s personal items.
On Tuesday, Probate Court Judge Brooke Allen approved the hiring of a real estate law firm to try to regain ownership of the home for Aycox. The judge ordered that the firm be hired only on a contingency basis.
“If he doesn’t recover, he will get nothing,” Allen said, noting that Aycox’s estate is currently insolvent.
A court filing shows that the firm’s attorneys charge between $275 and $400 an hour. Casanova told the judge that the real estate firm “felt that we had a good case against this title company.”
In court filings, Casanova wrote that a notice had been filed in the property deed records indicating a guardianship dispute over the home. However, Melvin told WFAA that the document merely served as notice and would not have stopped the foreclosure and sale.
Casanova declined to answer questions about her handling of the case, stating in an email: “This is a complicated and dynamic legal matter playing out in real time.”
Meanwhile, the current owner has updated and listed it for $269,000.
In court Tuesday, Casanova said she had spoken to the new owner and filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent the sale of the property.
Aycox remains in a nursing home, seemingly unaware of the ongoing legal battle over her home.
“Diana was a Christian woman. She believed that if she did everything right, everything would be good, that she would be blessed,” Torres said. “And this is not how you bless someone.”