A years-long family dispute over Bay Area real estate — one that saw a Contra Costa County lawmaker try to have her own mother declared incompetent — is drawing new scrutiny after court records surfaced showing the effort collapsed under the weight of medical evidence and a subsequent settlement.
The case involves Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías, who represents a district in the East Bay and now serves on the Assembly’s Aging and Long-Term Care Committee, a panel charged with safeguarding older Californians. Court files reviewed as part of an ongoing examination of the state’s conservatorship system show that Ávila Farías once sought to have her mother, AnaMaria Ávila Bugarin, placed under a conservatorship — and briefly faced a restraining order herself after her mother accused her of elder abuse.
The dispute, which played out in Contra Costa County Superior Court, centered on three properties the family once shared: a home purchased jointly with Ávila Farías’ mother and sister, the lawmaker’s own residence, and a separate rental property. In 2008, Ávila Farías and her husband transferred ownership of all three properties to her mother. Ávila Bugarin later told the court she had no idea two of those properties had been placed in her name — though her daughter maintained she had been informed.
Months after the transfer, the couple took out a $2.3 million business loan, which they defaulted on roughly a year and a half later. Their real estate company filed for bankruptcy in 2011, part of a pattern — the couple and their business have filed for bankruptcy three times since then, records show.
Years later, Ávila Bugarin said she discovered her daughter had fallen behind on mortgage payments tied to the family home and had also taken out loans against the property. Ávila Bugarin, who has limited English proficiency, said she believed she was signing paperwork to refinance the home rather than borrow against it. When she refused to sign the other two properties back over to her daughter — insisting she first wanted the family home returned — tensions escalated.
In February 2018, according to court filings, Ávila Farías went to her mother’s apartment and, during an argument, grabbed a phone from her hand and struck her wrist. Ávila Bugarin sought a temporary restraining order for herself and another daughter, Judith Ávila, who lived with her; a judge granted it, and it remained in place for about a year. Ávila Farías disputed the account, telling the court it was her mother who had slapped her. A third sister, RoseMarie Griffin, backed Ávila Farías, telling the court she had never witnessed behavior that would justify a restraining order.
After mediation failed, Ávila Bugarin moved to evict her daughter from the property now in her name. In response, Ávila Farías petitioned the probate court to place both her mother and sister under conservatorship, arguing her mother showed signs of “delusional and severely disorganized thinking” and citing an incident years earlier in which her mother had been the victim of a scam, along with an unrelated episode involving trespassers on her property.
A judge granted a temporary conservatorship over both women and ordered a psychological evaluation of Ávila Bugarin. But the results undercut the petition entirely. Two physicians, a neuropsychologist and even the court-appointed fiduciary — who had been recommended by Ávila Farías herself — all concluded that Ávila Bugarin showed no signs of cognitive impairment and was fully capable of managing her own affairs. Dr. Eric Freitag, the neuropsychologist who examined her, told the court she did not present “any form of significant cognitive deficits” that would limit her ability to make her own decisions. Experts reached similar conclusions regarding Judith Ávila.
Despite those findings, Ávila Farías did not withdraw the conservatorship petitions. About a year later, the case was resolved through a settlement: Ávila Bugarin agreed to transfer ownership of the two disputed properties — valued at roughly $1.8 million — back to her daughter, the two women agreed to sell the home they jointly owned, and Ávila Bugarin dropped her request for a restraining order. In exchange, Ávila Farías agreed to end her attempt to have her mother and sister placed under conservatorship.
The story didn’t end there. Five months after the settlement, with the family home still unlisted, a judge appointed a receiver to handle its sale over Ávila Farías’ objection. Three months after that, she filed for personal bankruptcy. The house eventually sold in November 2020, with proceeds used to cover more than $186,000 in legal fees and other costs tied to the conservatorship dispute. Ávila Farías also gave her mother $116,000 from the sale under the terms of the agreement.
The case has raised questions beyond the family dispute itself. In court filings, Ávila Farías stated that her mother had not financially contributed to the properties in two decades, writing that she alone had been “financially responsible for all asset liability” with “no financial contributions from Mom.” Yet several years earlier, in a 2014 letter to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, she offered a different account, stating that her mother had provided the down payment for one of the properties and had made loan payments on it ever since, calling her mother “the sole owner of the property.” That letter was submitted in response to a local resident’s request that she recuse herself from a Martinez City Council vote on a resolution that could have affected her property value. The commission found no conflict of interest, and Ávila Farías voted on the measure. At the time, she pushed back sharply against the resident’s request, telling the council she held herself to “a high moral standard” and didn’t need outside oversight of her conduct.
The Fair Political Practices Commission separately investigated complaints in 2024 that Ávila Farías had failed to disclose economic interests on annual financial disclosure forms for several years. That investigation was closed in 2025 after she amended her filings, disclosed the interests in question and completed a commission training course.
Melissa Brown, professor emeritus of elder law at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law, reviewed the case details and described the conservatorship petition as an apparent “weaponization of the process” — a tool meant to protect vulnerable adults instead being used amid a family property dispute.
Ávila Farías declined to discuss specifics of the case, citing a confidentiality agreement tied to the settlement, but said she intends to introduce legislation related to conservatorship reform, “hopefully next year,” though she did not offer details. Her spokesperson, Roger Salazar, said in a statement that “there has never been a judicial finding that Anamarie Farías engaged in any wrongdoing,” adding that conservatorship cases “commonly involve complex family dynamics.” Salazar also noted that Ávila Farías has since been appointed conservator for another family member, which he said reflects the court’s determination that she meets the legal standards required to serve in that role.
Other family members involved in the dispute either declined to comment, citing the same confidentiality agreement, or did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said the speaker was unaware of the restraining order or conservatorship petition when he appointed Ávila Farías to the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee.
Before entering state politics, Ávila Farías served on the Martinez City Council and the Contra Costa County Board of Education, and sat on the board of the California Housing Finance Agency from 2015 to 2024 — a period that overlapped with much of the family’s legal battles. She was elected to the Assembly in 2024 with an endorsement from Gov. Gavin Newsom and is now seeking a second term. She recently introduced legislation that would bar certain former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees from working as police officers or teachers in California; a scaled-back version of that bill has cleared the Assembly and is now before the state Senate.
Original source: CalMatters
