Protesters disrupted several foreclosure auctions Tuesday on the Sacramento County Courthouse steps, winning a temporary cancellation of one and sending an unidentified auctioneer to the hospital with chest pains.

Bidders on dozens of foreclosed Sacramento-area homes, all declining to provide their names, called the ACORN protest the first major disruption of an established auction schedule that plays out every weekday at the courthouse following 37,000 foreclosures in the capital region since January 2007.

About 75 statewide members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, in the capital for a lobbying day on housing bills, delayed at least three auctioneers from selling foreclosed homes starting in the low $100,000s and below.

A fourth auctioneer, Bryan Moulton of San Joaquin County-based Trustee Assistance Corp., sold four homes to bidders in several minutes, placing his paperwork on top of a trash can while surrounded by a chanting crowd. Moulton said he has seen similar actions when church congregations show up to protest the auction of a member's house.

"A yelling mob is not going to suspend foreclosures," he said after concluding his auction, "just like it's not going to suspend the rule of law. … If they wanted to take it off (the auction list), they should have paid the mortgage," he said.

By law, homes going on the auction block because of missed payments are advertised in legal publications before being auctioned "as is" to high bidders. Auctioneers, representing the trustees appointed by banks to handle the property, conduct the sales. If there are no bidders, the homes revert to the bank that made the mortgages, and typically are listed as bank repos by real estate agents.

An ACORN official said the activist group simply wants more time for struggling borrowers it claims were often targeted for dangerous loans.

"Many of the sales that are happening now are around houses that could be saved by the (loan modification and refinance) plans starting to be implemented," said Amy Schur, California director of ACORN.

The group conducted the protest with bullhorns, whistles and loud chants of "save our homes" to make its case for a moratorium on foreclosures until plans unveiled last March by the Obama administration have a chance to work.

California has a mandatory 90-day moratorium that begins in June for lenders that don't try hard to modify loans.

Organizers called the Sacramento action the newest in a series of protests by its "home defenders" that have been held in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Tuesday, as the day's first auction was to begin at 9:30 a.m. on the courthouse steps, Los Angeles ACORN member Kathleen Thompson-Boons asked an unidentified auctioneer to stop the auction.

When the auctioneer resumed seeking bids from nine potential buyers, Thompson-Boons asked again, prompting the auctioneer to tell her, "If you're not going to bid, then go away."

Seconds later, chanting protesters arrived on the steps, surrounding the surprised collection of auction officials and bidders.

The chants, whistles and bullhorns created a commotion that made it difficult to hear and conduct the auction.

Then the auctioneer began to collapse and was later taken to a local hospital. Other auctioneers, who said they were associates of the man at LPS Financial Services of Sacramento, said he had a pacemaker.

"I think it's a shame he had a medical condition and that happened," said ACORN spokeswoman Christina Livingston. "That was not our intention by any means."

Sacramento Fire Department officials said it is against policy to name individuals it transports to hospitals. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said a similar policy blocks it from releasing the auctioneer's name.

Members of ACORN continued their protest for nearly two hours, leaving with cheers after winning a concession to spare one particular house from being sold. The ACORN group identified the owners as Martha and Jesus Espejo of Sacramento. Thompson-Boons said the family fell behind on payments because of the loss of the father's job, and medical bills for two children who later died.

Schur said ACORN would resume negotiations with Bank of America Home Loans to seek a modification that would keep the family in its house.

After winning the concession, ACORN members boarded a bus and left the courthouse. As the bus motored off, an expanded group of 20 bidders gathered around another auctioneer who was rapidly reading descriptions of more houses for sale.

The protest was ended. The auctions continued as scheduled.

Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.