Mark S. Adams

Attorney at Law

Receivership Experience

Mark Adams is considered the most experienced health and safety receiver working in California. Since 1999, Mr. Adams and California Receivership Group (“CRG”) have been appointed by 184 different Superior Court judges and one United States District Court judge in 36 of the 58 California counties. 131 municipalities have trusted CRG to act as a health and safety receiver across 337 different properties.

CRG’s innovative approach includes arranging first-of-its-kind receivership certificate financing, hiring contractors and cleanup crews, and managing properties ranging from single family residences to large apartment complexes and motels. In various projects, CRG has arranged for the removal of 1,100 tons (2.4 million pounds) of debris from one 5-acre site (including $170,000 in recycling revenue); cleaned out an apartment building overrun by a drug dealer and a prostitute; recovered $120,000 from a mortgage-fraud perpetrator on behalf of a 75-year-old previous owner; and managed a 267-pad mobile home park housing over 3,000 migrant farmworkers. Mr. Adams has been appointed on approximately 10 motels throughout the state, including the 73,000 square foot Saddleback Inn in Santa Ana, which was demolished after a fire; a dilapidated historic Route 66 motel in Needles, which was opened to the county fire department for training purposes; a large, thoroughly-vandalized hotel in Palmdale that was brought back to code and reopened; and a century-old hotel in Oroville that was cleared of drug dealers and vagrants, then revitalized to become housing for a local college.

Mr. Adams has special expertise in dealing with recalcitrant property owners, whether they be passive investors, slumlords, convicted felons, drug addicts, hoarders, or the mentally ill.

Professional Experience

For the past 25 years, Mark Adams has served as President of California Receivership Group. He has assisted with the rehabilitation of over 330 properties throughout California while mentoring or training many others working in the field. Receivership projects have included single- and multi-family residences, hotels, motels, mobile home parks, and commercial buildings. Mr. Adams specializes in real estate, real estate finance, and litigation for appointment of slum housing receivers under Health and Safety Code section 17980.7, Penal Code, Code of Civil Procedure section 564 et seq., and Business and Professions Code section 17203. Aided by a dedicated team of legal, operations, public safety, construction, and real estate professionals throughout California, Mr. Adams coordinates all aspects of the receivership process from start to finish.

After graduating from Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., Mr. Adams began his career as an associate at Ball, Hunt, Hart, Brown and Baerwitz. He then served in the policy-development arm of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. He went on to serve as President of Callie Mae, Inc., where he founded and managed a mortgage banking company which sold over $500 million in home mortgage loans to California public pension funds and other institutional investors. From there, he transitioned to the role of Director of Public Affairs for Fannie Mae. In that capacity, he was responsible for congressional relations in the nine western states.

Mr. Adams went on to become a co-founder of the Blue-Ribbon Citizens’ Committee on Slum Housing, which served as the catalyst for the City of Los Angeles’ substantially expanded inspection program. During that time, he was a senior officer for a property management firm that managed 4,400 apartment units in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and worked with various clients in arranging bank financing for real estate projects.

In 1999, Mr. Adams became the first receiver ever to be appointed under the California Health and Safety Code section authorizing health and safety receivers. He remains the most experienced health and safety receiver in California, working to remediate dangerous and perpetually noncompliant nuisance properties.

Outside of CRG, Mark dedicates time and service to his community. He graduated magna cum laude from Loyola Marymount University in 1972 and has been continuously involved with the LMU alumni network. In 2022, he received the LMU Entrepreneurship Alumni Wall of Honor Award in recognition of his accomplishments at CRG, and he now serves as a founding member of the LMU Family Business Entrepreneurship Program Advisory Board. Mark also served from 2016 to 2022 on the National Board of Directors for the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, a nonprofit group which serves the needs of the poor and marginalized.