Mr. Christian Spicer San Diego's largest ADU developer and his company SDRE now rebranded to Infill Innovation makes front page news in the Union Tribune
Backlash, consequences growing against local poster child for ADU exploitation
Developer who capitalized on city incentives faces lawsuits, mortgage defaults and squatters
Sunday, October 4th, 2026
By David Garrick
Union-Tribune
The cautionary tale of San Diego’s notorious ADU incentive — and the man who exploited it like no one else — continues to evolve with more lawsuits, mortgage defaults and abandoned houses occupied by squatters.
The number of lawsuits filed by lenders, construction firms and others seeking financial damages from developer Christian Spicer has reached 30, including one filed by a 79-year-old former teacher who says he lost his $818,000 life savings.
Spicer’s would-be housing empire, which spans at least 92 local properties and possibly more than 200, faces additional challenges such as unpaid mortgages and property taxes — at least 50 notices of default and four foreclosures.
Perhaps more impactful to local residents and neighborhoods, squatters have taken over roughly a dozen of the single-family homes on oversized lots that Spicer acquired with intentions to build large farms of ADUs — accessory dwelling units.
Those proposed ADU farms, some with more than 100 units and many with more than 20, prompted city officials to scale back an unusually generous ADU incentive that they say Spicer exploited far more than anyone else.
Despite all the financial and legal challenges, Spicer and his partners still plan to move forward with many of the projects under a recently reorganized corporate structure — and with Spicer in a less prominent role.
Brian Doyle, chief executive of the reworked company now called Infill Innovation, said last week that Spicer and his partners managed to secure full permission to build all of their proposed projects before the city rolled back its ADU incentive in summer 2025.
“We’re going to work our way through it all,” said Doyle, referring to the lawsuits seeking many millions of dollars and the mortgage and property tax defaults. “You’re going to see a real flurry of activity on these projects.”
Critics of Spicer and his partners, including a community leader who has been meticulously tracking every lawsuit and notice of default for many months, said last week that no investor should trust these people.
“They are continuing to dupe new and unsuspecting investors into what now has morphed into nothing more than a Ponzi scheme,” said Pamela Beagal, who lives in Clairemont. “We don’t need any more 79-year-olds with disabled sons losing their life savings.”
‘The perfect sucker’
She was referring to Martin Eder, who filed suit against Spicer in June for malfeasance regarding Eder’s $818,000 investment in a planned 143-unit ADU farm on empty land in Encanto that a church once occupied.
“I lost what was essentially the accumulation of my life savings,” Eder said last week. “I was the perfect sucker.”
Eder was supposed to receive $16,000 in monthly dividends and own 6.2% of the multimillion-dollar ADU farm through something called “fractionalized” property ownership.
But Eder alleges that the dividends stopped coming after two payments, his name was never put on the property title, and that Spicer lied about having the required securities licenses to create fractional ownership.
The $818,000 was proceeds from Eder’s sale of a house in City Heights that he bought for his adult son. After the purchase, the son became disabled and unable to live on his own.
Eder, who taught for many years at National University and MiraCosta College, decided an investment with recurring dividends and no capital gains penalties — like what Spicer was offering — made more sense for his son.
He now sorely regrets getting involved with Spicer and his investors, but says he still isn’t sure whether they were planning to scam him all along or unexpectedly ran out of money.
“At best, it’s just sheer recklessness,” Eder said. “It’s possible they were building a real estate empire hoping to get bought out.”
Doyle declined to discuss any of the ongoing litigation. Spicer and his investors didn’t file a response to Eder’s suit, making it likely Eder will get a default judgment in his favor, said his attorney, Mike Aguirre.
Eder said it’s odd that none of the other investors in the Encanto ADU farm have so far sued Spicer, stressing that his 6.2% is only a small fraction of what was invested in the still-unbuilt ADU farm.
Aguirre said last week that the case is still mysterious to him. But he speculated that Spicer used money from Eder and others to pay off earlier investors.
Proposed projects targeted
The Eder suit followed litigation filed in February and March that spans several of Spicer’s proposed projects, not just one.
Spicer investor Vision Quest filed suit in March seeking more than $13 million in damages, alleging Spicer exaggerated how quickly he could get city approval for projects.
In February, lender HL3 Sierra filed a suit seeking $5 million in damages. That suit alleges Spicer failed to make loan payments or pay taxes on properties earmarked for ADU farms.
Three other lawsuits have been filed by investors or lenders involved in Spicer’s ADU ventures: Fadi Atiya in June, Rodrigo Zermeno in August and Blue Point Capital, which filed its suit just last week.
The Blue Point lawsuit alleges that Spicer artificially inflated the value of an ADU property he bought for $800,000 on Shoshoni Street in Clairemont by re-selling it to himself for $1.2 million. The investors say they contributed $375,000 in September 2023 and have never received any compensation.
Spicer and his investors also face 22 lawsuits from construction companies, builders and related enterprises — including one filed just last week.
Many of the claims are simple: Spring Valley Insulation is suing for $17,000 based on allegations they did work and never got paid. But some are more complex.
JB General LLC says in its suit that a Spicer company called Vertical Movement “wrongfully diverted and converted the earmarked funds for a use other than that for which the funds were to pay for, which is an act of conversion and is also a public offense in violation of federal contracting rules.”
Some of the suits aren’t related to investing, lending or construction.
In August, Seville Plaza Property sued Spicer and his investors for $230,000 in back rent for an office the company abandoned in Kearny Mesa and for breaking a five-year lease on the site that had $1.6 million in remaining payments.
Spicer and his investors moved from that Kearny Mesa office to a new space in Carmel Valley on High Bluffs Drive.
In addition, a community group called Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach sued in 2025 to block a 136-unit ADU development proposed for eastern Pacific Beach.
The suit says the city approved the project without analyzing it thoroughly enough, particularly regarding Native American artifacts on the site.
The 30 lawsuits include 22 from construction firms, six from lenders or investors, the broken-lease suit and the suit from Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach.
That suit, which prompted a local judge to issue an injunction, might ultimately prevent the project from being built.
Strong ADU demand
But most of the other projects will likely be built eventually — by Spicer and his investors or someone else — because permits have been secured and the financial lawsuits have no impact on those permits.
Doyle said last week that there is strong demand for ADUs, which he characterized as a type of housing that appeals to single professionals.
“We’re building new homes in neighborhoods that haven’t had anything new in decades,” he said.
Without discussing the litigation or defaults, Doyle said the company’s reorganization is notable.
Infill Innovation is a merger of San Diego Real Estate Homebuyers, Vertical Movement, Pro-Cal Design and Engineering, and Source Group Realty. Each lawsuit is against one or more of those entities.
“We are a very different company than entered into those agreements,” said Doyle, adding that he took over leadership of the company from Spicer about four months ago. He said Spicer is still with the company, but has a reduced role.
“Christian had some great ideas of how to create housing for people,” said Doyle, adding that Spicer lacked expertise in some areas of development.
Of the 92 properties owned by Spicer and his investors that Beagal is tracking, 82 are in the city of San Diego and 10 are in other local cities.
Beagel said at least one real estate website shows Spicer-related business interests controlling more than 200 development properties in the region.
Squatters move in
Of the 82 properties in San Diego, about a dozen are completed and being rented out, and just under 20 are partially built, Beagel said.
The others are either empty lots or lots with an abandoned single-family home or two, she said.
In many of those cases, squatters have moved into those abandoned homes. Police reports document half a dozen such instances — and at least three of those sites have had fires blamed on squatters. On Sept. 23, attorneys for Spicer and his investors filed suit against one alleged squatter for illegally entering four properties they own in Linda Vista between February and September.
Those sites are in addition to squatting incidents documented by police.
Those same attorneys also filed a cease-and-desist order against Beagel for posting some employee phone numbers on the Spicer-tracking website she operates, adubonus.org.
That website urges people not to invest with Spicer and directs those with a complaint to five agencies where they could file one: the San Diego County District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Financial Protection & Innovation, the FBI and the state Department of Real Estate.
Brendan McHugh, chief of economic crimes and consumer protection for the county DA, said by email last week that he told Beagel to direct any victims of real estate fraud to the DA’s online reporting tool, sdcda.org/preventing/real-estate-fraud.
McHugh said he could not comment on whether there is an ongoing investigation into any particular person or entity, citing a longtime DA policy.