Last week, I wrote about Dorothy DeBose, the 76-year-old retired phone-company employee who was evicted in March from the East Oakland house she inherited from her mother.

For now, DeBose lives with her nephew, Omar Taylor, in a unit attached to her former Bancroft Avenue home. Taylor had a lease agreement with DeBose that established him as a tenant, which allows him to stay in the unit. But Community Fund LLC, the San Leandro property-management company that bought the house at a foreclosure auction, is taking him to court in less than two weeks.

According to Taylor, Community Fund wants him and DeBose off the property.

That’s not what Jessica Marr, Community Fund’s property manager, told me. Something’s not adding up, and it saddens me that an elderly woman has to worry about whether she’s going to have a place to live next month.

Marr said she wants to resolve the situation — and has suggested three offers that would allow DeBose to return to her home. She said none has been accepted.

“Tell me what she’s willing to pay, and I can negotiate something for you,” Marr said. “But if you just want to make somebody the bad guy, it’s not us. If the bad guy’s the bank, then tell the bank to give you the house back.”

Wells Fargo Bank, which foreclosed on the home in the fall, expressed sympathy for DeBose’s predicament.

“This is clearly a difficult situation, and if we had been aware of any of the details, we may have been able to offer some options for assistance,” said Tom Goyda, a spokesman for Wells Fargo.

But Wells Fargo’s sympathy has a ceiling.

“Unfortunately, our records indicate we were never made aware of the death of Ms. DeBose’s mother,” Goyda said during a phone conversation this week. “We didn’t have any requests for assistance or responses to many outreach efforts we made in an effort to understand the circumstances and to offer assistance. And that went on for a period of years.”

Here’s where DeBose’s dilemma gets complex.

Her mother, Bessie DeBose, who died in 2009, was the only borrower on the loan — and was still the legal owner at the time of the foreclosure sale in 2016. Dorothy DeBose, who has not married and has no children, was bequeathed the house in which she spent four decades of her life when her mother died.

“We had no way of knowing what might’ve been happening with regard to the property or the loan,” Goyda said.

Dorothy DeBose’s mother had taken out a perilous pick-a-pay loan from World Savings Bank. Pick-a-pay allowed borrowers to choose among four payment options. They could make the minimum payment, an interest-only payment, a payment that paid off the loan in 30 years or one that paid it off in 15 years. What made the loans so dangerous was that most borrowers paid just the minimum, which didn’t cover even the interest. After a set time period, the mandatory payment would jump.

In 2005, the minimum payment for DeBose’s mother was under $500. Ten years later, the minimum DeBose encountered had doubled.

Goyda said the situation Debose faced would’ve been covered by the December 2010 agreement for Wells Fargo to make $2 billion in loan modifications for California homeowners with pick-a-pay mortgages that Wells had purchased from other banks.

Taylor said DeBose thought the will, which left the house to her, was sufficient. She continued making the mortgage payments as the loan changed banks through acquisitions: from Oakland’s World Savings Bank to Wachovia to Wells Fargo.

According to Taylor, DeBose kept the mortgage current until her sister died in early 2016. She paid for the funeral and missed several payments. When she resumed paying Wells Fargo, her checks were returned.

Goyda told me repeated attempts were made to contact Bessie DeBose — not Dorothy DeBose — about the loan’s status. And he said foreclosure notices were posted on the doors of the house and the attached unit in September. Taylor said they didn’t see them.

“We live in East Oakland,” he said. “You can’t post things on a house.”

At the time, Taylor was traveling between Oakland and Seattle for work. So did DeBose see the posted notices? Taylor said no.

“Keep in mind, she’s 76 years old,” Taylor said. “There’s still a lot of information that went through her that I’m still finding out. She was focusing on the mail she was familiar with. There was a tremendous amount of mail that her mother received.”

There seems to be some gulf of missing information between DeBose, Taylor, Wells Fargo and Community Fund. The house was sold Oct. 31 and purchased for $347,100 by Community Fund. And five months later, DeBose was escorted from the house, given 10 minutes to pack anything she wanted to take with her.

Is it too late for DeBose to get her home back? And will Wells Fargo provide any assistance? Goyda was noncommittal. Besides, Wells doesn’t even own the house. Community Fund’s Marr said deals have been proposed — and rejected.

“What this underscores is how important it is for heirs to take action to protect their interests,” Goyda said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr