Nader Agha avoids foreclosure on his Moss Landing property for at least two more months.

If you were hoping to put in a bid for Nader Agha's Moss Landing Commercial Park, which was scheduled for a foreclosure sale July 27 in Salinas, today was not a good day.

If you are Nader Agha, or one if his attorneys, today was quite the opposite. 

For the second time in two months, Agha's attorneys staved off foreclosure on his Moss Landing property, and Monterey County Superior Court Judge Susan Matcham issued an injunction to prevent another sale of the property through Sep. 25.

A little backstory: Agha still has about $18 million in unpaid debt on the property, with $7.5 of it being held by Bank of the Sierra, which sued last August to foreclose on the property. 

Matcham halted the first scheduled foreclosure sale in early May, agreeing with Agha's attorneys that foreclosure could cause "irreparable harm" to the other three parties that own debt, one of whom is Agha himself.

This morning, Matcham heard two separate issues surrounding the property's litigation. In the first, she continued the Bank of the Sierra's request to add a writ of attachment for the Trustee of the Molasses Trust, which is essentially a request to add Agha's personal assets as collateral to his unpaid debts.

Matcham said she needed more clarity as to why the property itself wasn't enough collateral, and said she would like to hear more argument on that in the next hearing. 

Second, Matcham considered once again as to whether to allow the foreclosure. Agha's attorneys, led by David Balch, argued that an arbitration about the foreclosure matter is scheduled for Sep. 3, and that both parties agreed to it. 

Matcham heard those arguments, and again reiterated that the sale could cause "irreparable harm," both financially and if the owner had plans in the works for using the property. 

The Bank of the Sierra is the "lead" bank in the loan, which usually means it can decide when to foreclose. But the loan agreement is complex, and is contradictory in places, allowing for a majority of stakeholders to stop foreclosure. In this case, Bank of the Sierra hold 42 percent of the debt, and the other parties—who are united in opposition to the foreclosure—hold 58 percent.

Matcham called the agreement "unusual," and said it was a "difficult case."

She set a case management conference for Sep. 25, at which point, pending the outcome of arbitration, further rulings on the matter might become moot. 

Bank of the Sierra attorney Don Pool indicated that, pending the outcome of arbitration, his client might schedule another foreclosure sale as soon as Sep. 28.