When Idriis Bilaal, 77, got a foreclosure notice about a year ago, all he could think about was how he could save the home where he had been born, a run-down red-brick rowhouse in Northeast Washington.

After a series of sleepless nights and failed attempts to find money, Bilaal accepted an offer from one of a host of "foreclosure rescue specialists" who had called or left fliers and business cards as soon as the notice of foreclosure was published.

He signed some papers provided by an ex-con and retired minister named Calvin Baltimore -without wearing his reading glasses, he says.

Soon after, to his horror, Bilaal says, he realized this wasn't a loan - he had in fact signed away the title to his 100-year-old house to Washington businessman Vincent Abell, who was convicted years ago for his role in a huge real estate fraud in the 1980s.

The house recently was appraised for $255,000, but Bilaal received less than $20,000, according to his lawyers - the $7,000 that he had fallen behind on his mortgage, plus $10,000 cash. But Abell's company did not agree to pay off or assume Bilaal's mortgage, so Bilaal remains responsible for those $714-a-month payments. On top of that, he began making rent payments of $500 a month to Abell's company.

Consumer advocates say they have seen a mushrooming number of similar situations around the country, in which house-rich but cash-poor homeowners desperate to stave off foreclosure end up losing ownership to those who promise to save them.

"You can sort of tell (what's happening) by all the signs posted on street corners and telephone poles," said Doyle Niemann, assistant state's attorney in Prince George's County, Md., where three cases of possible rescue scams are under investigation. Such signs usually trumpet "stop foreclosure" or "save your house."

The fraud, he said, is "they're not making loans, they're expropriating houses at a discounted price and pocketing the difference."

Bilaal still is not sleeping well, but he remains in the house, despite a recent eviction lawsuit filed by Abell's company, Modern Management Inc. of Washington. In September, Bilaal filed suit in D.C. Superior Court against Abell, Baltimore and five others for allegedly having "tricked" him and two other D.C. homeowners out of their deeds. The three plaintiffs are represented by lawyers from the Washington office of AARP's Legal Counsel for the Elderly, the AARP Foundation Litigation and Hogan & Hartson.

"I would never have considered selling my house," Bilaal said recently. The veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, who retired with post-traumatic stress syndrome in 1967, said he has always wanted to leave his house to his children. "I came along during the Depression, and the few of us whose families were able to get property want to keep it," he said.

The defendants deny the allegations, saying that they saved the houses from foreclosure and that the homeowners understood the terms of the deals, under which they would be renting back the houses they once owned.

The deals give people the chance to repurchase their house after a year. In Bilaal's case, the price would be $110,000, according to the lawsuit.

"All of my clients had one year to raise over $100,000 to buy their home back," said AARP lawyer James Sugarman. "This would be on top of their present mortgage loan amount. ."

Reports of problems with foreclosure rescues have increased in the past 18 months, according to consumer advocates and regulators. The number of homeowners in delinquency or facing foreclosure has steadily marched on, while at the same time home values have skyrocketed.

About 435,000 loans nationally were in the foreclosure process in the thirdquarter of 2004, and 1.7 million were delinquent.

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