LAWRENCE — When Lawrence CommunityWorks found out in April that the multifamily brick building at 121 Garden St. had been foreclosed on, the nonprofit group sought to buy it for affordable housing

Phone calls to Deutsche Bank, listed as the owner, led nowhere, as did calls to the company that handles foreclosures for the bank.

"Nothing happened for months," said Tamar Kotelchuck, a CommunityWorks project director.

What stymied CommunityWorks was the complex web of ownership that entangles 121 Garden St. and many other foreclosed properties.