Elmo and Meliitta Marquette were finally made whole Friday, when Michael Leland and Sandra Bittler agreed to return the two-acre property they purchased from the elderly couple last November for one-tenth of its real-market value.

In a settlement announced shortly after noon, Leland and Bittler returned the 2.02-acre lot to the Marquettes, along with a valuable easement to the property.

The settlement statement notes:

"The Marquettes will receive the property back, and will keep the $22,000.00 Leland and Bittler paid them for that property. There will be no restrictions on the Marquettes' ability to develop the property in the future if they so choose.

"As the parties have reached an agreement, they ask that their privacy be respected allowing them the opportunity to live as neighbors in peace."

As David Shaw, the Portland attorney hired this week to represent the Marquettes, notes, "It's as if they were put back in the place they were before the transaction happened, plus the $22,000, and minus whatever they pay me and the heartbreak and heartburn they experienced in the meantime."

That heartache was considerable, once the Marquettes -- Elmo is 86, Meliitta 88 -- checked their bank statements and realized they sold the Southwest Portland real estate for pennies on the dollar.

Elmo and Meliitta Marquette

When Leland -- the president of Mortgage Trust -- and Bittler first moved into the Garden Home neighborhood seven years ago, they told the Marquettes they were interested in buying the two-acre meadow so that, as Leland later put it, "our kids would get a larger backyard in which to play."

Frustrated with his latest tax bill on the property, Elmo Marquette approached several neighbors last November, offering to sell the lot. One neighbor, Wayne Shoultz, rejected a $5,000 offer, telling Elmo that he was clearly confused about the assessed value of the lot.

Leland and Bittler took a different approach, drawing up an earnest money agreement for $22,000.

"If we were the ones pursuing them, that's one thing," Leland said last week. "But that was never the case.

"It's not like we were sneaking something by these people ... I do feel comfortable they understood the sales price. Is it worth more than $20,000? Absolutely. We said, 'It's worth a heck of a lot more than that.' (But) their main goal was accomplished. Nothing is going to get built on that property while they are alive."

The Marquettes were unrepresented by an attorney or realtor at closing, signing the papers at their kitchen table. The final contract included a right-of-way into the property that is not mentioned in the earnest-money agreement.

Because the $22,000 was transferred directly to the Marquettes' bank account, the couple did not realize until April that they had so under-valued the property.

"I didn't read it carefully. I should have, but I didn't. I thought it was $220,000," Meliitta said last week. As Elmo's son, Tom Marquette, observed Friday, "Dad was embarrassed he made the mistake, and wasn't going to admit he knew he sold it for $22,000 rather than $220,000. He's just not thinking clearly and consistently."

That's sometimes a problem with the elderly. And that's why Ellen Klem, the director of consumer outreach and education at Oregon's Department of Justice, says, "People are taken advantage of every single day. The latest stat we have, nationally, is that for every case of financial exploitation we hear about, 43 others go unreported."

When the details of the transaction became public, the reaction was powerful, particularly among the professionals in the real-estate community.

Bittler was promptly terminated at Oregon First because -- Mickey J. Lindsay, the vice president and managing principal broker said -- she did not disclose the transaction to her employers, as required by Oregon law.

Leland and Bittler spent several days mounting a tepid defense of the deal, in which they secured two acres that were probably worth far more than the $220,000 listed as the real-market value by Multnomah County.

But once the Department of Justice announced it would examine the transaction, Leland and Bittler hired Beaverton attorney Damon Henrie, and Henrie swiftly negotiated the settlement deal with Shaw.

"Well, it's over, I hope," Elmo Marquette said. "To have it done is good."

-- Steve Duin