Creditors' long struggle to recoup money they had tied up in Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. and Summit Securities Inc. before those affiliated companies here shut down seven years ago is entering its final phase.

Still at stake are millions of dollars' worth of potential disbursements, the exact size of which will depend greatly on how fast the real estate market recovers between now and February 2016, when their bankruptcy saga concludes. That's because most of the remaining assets to be liquidated are real estate holdings spread across the U.S.

"I'm just sorry we're not done with this thing," says bankruptcy trustee Maggie Lyons, who notes that many of the affected investors are elderly and estimates that she's now receiving copies of an average of seven death certificates each month.

Six months ago, she attended the Pasco, Wash., funeral of one of them she'd gotten to know.

"I think I've seen the best and worst of human nature through this, but—I can tell you—the best has prevailed," Lyons says.

She oversees the separate, but jointly administered Metropolitan Creditors' Trust and Summit Creditors' Trust, which so far have disbursed $80.6 million and $20.8 million, respectively, to a combined total of more than 12,000 creditors.

That equates to about 21.5 cents on the dollar of Metropolitan creditors' principal investment that they lost when the company ceased operating, and about 14 cents on the dollar for Summit creditors.

Lyons said in an annual letter mailed to trust beneficiaries four months ago that the total Metropolitan recovery is projected to be 35 percent, or roughly another 14 cents on the dollar, and Summit's total recovery is estimated to be 25 percent, or about another 11 cents on the dollar above what already has been disbursed.

Lyons says she considers those estimates to be conservative, but she emphasizes that they depend heavily on how much money can be obtained from the sale of close to 30 properties for which buyers are being sought.

Owned technically by several different entities, the properties range from 23 acres of light industrial-zoned land in Airway Heights and nearly 100 acres of commercial land in Everett, Wash., to a ranch in Montana, a castle in Phoenix, and 10 acres of freeway frontage in Granbury, Texas, near Fort Worth.

The trust disbursements are separate from a recent payout made to some Metropolitan investors stemming from the settlement of a major class-action lawsuit, Lyons says. That settlement was confined to people who made investments within about three years before the company filed for bankruptcy protection and provided for a varying recovery of up to about 18 cents on each dollar invested, though much less in some cases. That's on top of any money those investors have gotten or will receive as part of the larger group of beneficiaries of the Met or Summit trust.

The trusts that Lyons oversees originally were scheduled to be terminated on Feb. 11 of this year, but that was based on the assumption that all significant assets would be liquidated by then. The liquidation process has been slowed by a number of factors, including the number and complexity of the real estate holdings and related contracts, as well as the sharp decline in real estate values and demand caused by the recession, Lyons says.

For those reasons, and with the approval of the trusts' executive boards, she requested a five-year extension of the deadline, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved it, with the trusts' termination now set for Feb. 11, 2016.

Creditors' interests will be better served, Lyons contends, by holding onto the properties until real estate values improve, rather than dumping them at vastly discounted "fire sale" prices. In her March letter, she estimated that a forced auction of all remaining properties before the deadline earlier this year "would have sacrificed more than 80 percent of the remaining recovery for the beneficiaries of both trusts."

Not all creditors are happy about the extension, but Roger Nelson, of Spokane Valley, who along with his wife, Karen, lost a large sum when the Metropolitan financial conglomerate collapsed, is convinced it's the right move.

"There's some pretty good assets that kind of bode well for those of us still living" as real estate values rebound over the next few years, says Roger Nelson, who's in his early 70s. "It behooves us to wait a little longer."

He says he has gotten to know Lyons well as the bankruptcy case has progressed, and adds, "I really admire what she has done" in trying to ensure that Metropolitan and Summit investors get back as much of their money as possible.

"As for Karen and I, we are struggling like many other retirees to make our assets last," and will be grateful for any additional payouts, Nelson says.

Many investors had their life savings wiped out and hundreds of employees lost their jobs when the $2 billion-plus Metropolitan conglomerate, widely regarded here for many years as a safe investment option, collapsed in a local precursor to the financial industry crisis that swept the country a few years later.

A lot of investors appeared to lay the heaviest blame for the corporate failure, rightly or wrongly, on former Chairman and CEO C. Paul Sandifur Jr., who spearheaded a sizable expansion of the company that his father founded in the 1950s.

The Metropolitan and Summit trusts were established following a bankruptcy reorganization plan confirmation in early 2006, and Lyons serves as both the trustee and plan administrator.

In the latest sign that a lengthy feud with the Washington state Office of the Insurance Commissioner hasn't been forgotten, she says she remains convinced that the bankruptcy case extension wouldn't have been necessary if that agency had done a better job handling the disposition of Western United Life Assurance Co.

As part of a complex rehabilitation plan, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler sold that company, a Metropolitan affiliate and its largest asset, out of receivership three years ago, "but for little cash," Lyons says.

Rather, more than 90 percent of the purchase price, she says, was "'paid' with problematic real estate" and an illiquid Old Standard Life Insurance Co. receivable that the buyer didn't want, "consisting of an OSL contract to make future payments to Western United in connection with certain insurance policies." That transaction, she asserts, has greatly complicated the task of recovering money for Metropolitan and Summit investors.

In a somewhat convoluted corporate web, Western United Life and Old Standard, also a Metropolitan affiliate, own real estate representing the majority of the asset value remaining in the Metropolitan and Summit trusts. Those insurance companies were the largest single assets transferred into each trust.

Western United Life was owned by Metropolitan and Western United Holding Co. , and Old Standard Life was owned—and still is—by the Summit Creditors' Trust. Both companies were under state insurance receiverships when the trusts were formed.

In 2006, Metropolitan and Western United Holding reached a settlement agreement that provided for the first $15.3 million of proceeds from Western United Life to be paid to Western United Holding, with the balance to be paid to the Met Trust.

That amount owed to Western United Holding now has been paid off—through a jointly owned company named FBA Land Holdings LLC into which all of the real estate assets were transferred—so all future recoveries from Western United Life will now flow to the Met Trust, which is significant, Lyons says.

So far, two of the 13 properties transferred to FBA have been sold, and Old Standard Life still owns about 15 real estate properties. The large commercial property in Everett is the only major one owned directly by the Met Trust.

Complexities aside, Lyons has been living and breathing the Metropolitan bankruptcy case—for years, devoting around 300 hours a month to it, now down to about 50 hours a month as she and a dwindling staff take ongoing steps to work themselves out of a job.

As that happens, and the final recovery payments trickle in to be disbursed to creditors, Lyons' attention has shifted more to other trustee and receivership work, but she says helping out the Metropolitan and Summit creditors remains a priority.

"It's been a privilege to work for these people, and hard emotionally," she says. "I had not dealt at this level of loss before. I had mostly dealt with institutional creditors. Recovering on a lot of these bad investments has been rewarding. I think the wisdoms and insights provided by many of the creditors has been rewarding, but at the same time it has been very sad."