A man in Ohio may be reaching the end of the line after fighting foreclosure on his former home for nearly 15 years, as an eviction notice on the home has been approved.
Louis Telerico of Aurora, OH, was first served with a foreclosure notice on his $4.5 million mansion in 2011. The 17,000-square-foot home sits near the 17th green of a golf course in the exclusive neighborhood of Barrington Estates.
After a decade and a half of mediations, hearings, and a constant legal battle, Telerico has still not given up on his dream of remaining in the home.
“It’s a one-of-a-kind property,” Telerico told WEWS after a recent eviction hearing. “I built it.”
In a typical foreclosure case, there are two orders that the defendant can appeal: the decree of foreclosure and the order of confirmation after the property sells. While these appeals can buy the homeowner time, typical foreclosures and repossessions still take only one to two years.
Telerico filed appeals at these usual opportunities, but two other major factors contributed to the length of his foreclosure case, according to Mark L. Rodio, a partner at Frantz Ward with over 30 years of experience in real estate law.
“This foreclosure was filed in 2011, in the aftermath of the Great Recession from the mortgage crisis,” Rodio tells Realtor.com®. “There was a high volume of foreclosure cases, and the courts were just moving more slowly.”
The case carried on through the COVID-19 pandemic, another period of court delays.
In addition to filing five notices of appeals, each of which delays the case between seven and 12 months, Telerico filed five bankruptcies, delaying the case another seven to 12 months each time. The bankruptcies, according to Rodio, are the second main reason this situation is still ongoing.
“They’ll file a bankruptcy, because the moment they file it, the automatic stay will stop the foreclosure sale or eviction or whatever is happening,” said Rodio. “And if they keep filing, even if they do an improper filing, they give them chance after chance after chance.”
Fourteen years after the original foreclosure was filed in August 2011, Bank of America finally acquired title to the property at 545 Bristol Drive in December 2025. The bank then sold it to investment company ERADAL in July 2026 for just over $3 million.
Despite ERADAL’s new ownership of the house, Telerico is still residing inside.
When Bank of America took possession of the home, it did not “take any action to execute upon such writ of possession,” according to the Complaint for Eviction filed by ERADAL.
On July 31, the company served Telerico with a three-day notice to vacate the property. Because he did not leave, the investment company filed the Complaint for Eviction on Aug. 6, where it noted the property’s disarray.
“Defendant has stalled his foreclosure case for approximately 15 years during which he has failed to properly maintain the Premises, including but not limited to allowing one or more holes to appear in the slate roof,” the complaint reads. “Upon information and belief, a substantial risk exists that Defendant will continue to allow the condition of the Premies to deteriorate and/or intentionally damage the Premises prior to the hearing on this matter.
“As such, Plaintiff requests that this matter be set for an expedited hearing to the extent possible,” the complaint continues.
ERADAL is going forward with improvements to the property, despite Telerico’s presence. The company has applied at least 25 gallons of weed killer, marked trees for removal, and identified damage to the roof and home, ERADAL’s property manager Greg Cutting told WEWS.
“It’s a beautiful home and it’s a beautiful backdrop. It’s just everything has gotten overgrown and diseased and has covered it up,” said Cutting.
A Portage County Magistrate approved the eviction of Telerico at a recent eviction hearing. However, Telerico and his attorney, Mark Graziani, indicated that they’re not ready to step down.
“We are in negotiations to settle this whole thing with a purchase agreement,” Graziani said, according to WEWS.
The attorney also noted in the hearing that Telerico “just doesn’t want this accelerated faster than he can get financing.”
ERADAL president Eric Lindsey told WEWS that he’s willing to work with the home’s former owner, but the timeline is in Telerico’s hands.
“If he doesn’t come up with a way to make this happen, then it will be over for him, and we’ll go in and clean up the property and make it nice,” he told the local outlet.
Realtor.com reached out to both Telerico and ERADAL’s lawyers but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
