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Landlords are up in arms over grocer Haggen's high-speed retreat from a rapid West Coast expansion that landed the company in bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. More than 100 stores will be shut down to pay off lenders that financed the disastrous growth spurt, and landlords say the company is taking inappropriate shortcuts. The decision to close down most of Haggen's stores was announced just weeks into the chapter 11 proceeding, less than a year after a deal that transformed the long-time Pacific Northwest grocery chain into a regional player.

West Coast grocer Haggen Holdings LLC filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, shortly after suing rival grocer Albertsons Cos. over a $300 million deal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Haggen bought 146 Albertsons locations last year, hoping to grow into a super-regional chain. Haggen sued rival grocer Albertsons in federal court Sept. 1, alleging Albertsons engaged in “coordinated and systematic efforts to eliminate competition and Haggen as a viable competitor in over 130 local grocery markets in five states.” In court papers, Haggen accused Albertsons of destroying the profitability of the stores through a number of tactics, including allegedly misusing confidential data. Albertsons, which has yet to answer the lawsuit, sold the stores as part of its acquisition of Safeway Inc., a transaction that made it the second largest grocery chain in the U.S.

A North Carolina real estate investment firm that owns the Wyndham Garden Hotel and other Manhattan real estate has put four properties into chapter 11 with a plan to sell them at a bankruptcy auction, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The four New York properties — three hotels and a vacant lot — are valued at some $200 million and are located in choice neighborhoods across Manhattan. The properties filed for bankruptcy court protection on Thursday amid a legal battle between their owners. Gemini Equity Partners LLC, the Huntersville, N.C.-based owner of the properties, has lined up initial offers for the hotels and land, subject to higher bids at a bankruptcy-court-supervised auction. Proceeds from the sales are slated to fully repay creditors, owed a total of about $135 million, according to Gemini vice president Christopher La Mack.

Developer Donovan Clarke has filed for chapter 11 protection for Clarke Real Estate Development LLC, which had been constructing up to 22 large homes at Parke Place in the 1300 block of Bainbridge Street and offering them for sale at more than $1 million each, complete with elevators, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today. The bankruptcy follows mortgage foreclosure actions by Clarke's original financial partner, the Dietz & Watson Defined Benefit Pension Fund for workers at the Northeast Philadelphia lunchmeat company, that resulted in listing several of the Parke Place properties for sheriff's sale. Clarke said that he expects the pension fund "will ultimately be paid, and there will be new funding."

David Cassidy's Fort Lauderdale home is up for auction after a bankruptcy court appointed Fisher Auction Co. to oversee the sale, the South Florida Business Journal reported on Friday. The home has been assessed at $1.9 million and the auction date is tentatively set for Aug. 19. Cassidy, best known for his role in the 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family,” reported assets and debts each between $1 million and $10 million in his bankruptcy filing.

The former RadioShack won court approval of the last major transactions of its bankruptcy case: more than $50 million worth of real estate in Texas, California and Maryland, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon said at a hearing this week that he will sign off on the deals, according to a lawyer present at the session in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Properties in Fort Worth, Texas, and Woodland, Calif., are being sold to B.H. Management Inc. for $39.29 million. SK Realty Management LLP is buying the former RadioShack 's Hagerstown, Md., property for $11.4 million, court papers say.

Fannie Mae will begin bulk auctions of mortgages, including some sales targeted for nonprofit groups and small investors, as the company moves to cut the number of nonperforming loans on its books, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “These transactions are intended to reduce the number of seriously delinquent loans that Fannie Mae owns, to help stabilize neighborhoods and to offer borrowers access to additional foreclosure prevention options,” Fannie Mae Senior Vice President Joy Cianci said. “Our goal is to market these loans to a diverse range of buyers.” The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has overseen U.S. conservatorship of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae since 2008, is requiring the companies to reduce the number of severely delinquent loans on their books this year. In March, the agency released a set of new rules for the sale of troubled mortgages. Freddie Mac has auctioned about $2 billion in defaulted debt in three separate sales since last year. Fannie Mae’s first sale will happen “in the near future,” the company said.

Thousands of Americans who have skipped years of mortgage payments and are still living in their homes may get to keep their homes without ever having to pay another dime thanks to a legal quirk, the New York Times reported today. The reason, lawyers for homeowners argue, is that the cases have dragged on too long. There are tens of thousands of homeowners who have missed more than five years of mortgage payments, many of them clustered in states like Florida, New Jersey and New York, where lenders must get judges to sign off on foreclosures. However, in a growing number of foreclosure cases filed when home prices collapsed during the financial crisis, lenders may never be able to seize the homes because the state statutes of limitations have been exceeded, according to interviews with housing lawyers and a review of state and federal court decisions.