Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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SBFY, I also smell a rat. But to again take both sides of the street, I happen to know that Utah has some very funny laws. Over there they can literally send a bunch of people to your house if you owe money, and walk through and find and take any valuables they like. It happened to some people I know, they now live in Ohio.
Utah is not normal, and I do think I got the full story on this. Getting it from more than one family member, it was for a tax debt on a pension. The Patriarch of the family was looney and is now on lithium, the rest of the family would not be able to say exactly what he had signed nor what notices he might have ignored.
With these people I have to assume the worst, knowing this guy's history. One of these days if you would like to hear about it I'll tell you, but it is long. Let me just give you one little detail for now : he took his gun into a psyche ward and it got discovered when he was released because they check any packages to see if you stole their towels or anything else.
The thing is the tenet of most law is to be reasonable. If we are talking a fifty grand house here, it is unreasonable for a judge to order it's sale for a debt of five percent or less of it's value. I fully agree that there must be penalties for nonpayment of a debt, but IMO this went too far. Certainly there should have been a lien.
A lien and a negative credit report go a long way for some people.With a lien you are not getting anymore credit unless the place is worth gold and you pay interest out the ass. Further a bad credit report can trigger an action by all lenders to accelerate at will. It's in the 1991 UCC revision.
At that point they can't yet foreclose, but they can legally demand immediate payment. Additionally if you have any credit cards, expect them to soon go up to the default interest rate, with an accelerated payment schedule. That can kill you. They will also scale down the credit limit to whatever you currently owe. This is all prefectly legal. When this happens people can get a high rate refi, consolidating debt but that payment is not likely to save them any money each month. Additionally, if they had any open credit on their cards they are very unlikely to be able to use it, they will scale it down, and even as you pay on it, they will scale it down even further.
However, you should not skate on a bill. I agree. But unreasonable is unreasonable. If what she says is true, fraud was commited. If she recieved no notices, it surely was, and in Utah, well that's one of the places where I think it likely. Their government is very cliquish, and quite corrupt. It is perfectly possible that somepeople got in cahootz and pulled this off, because if it happened every day it would not be news.
Even if the fraud was commited outside the statute of limitations, in most states the statute of limitations begins when the fraud is discovered. But then Utah, I dunno. A process server swears that his delived the document(s) in person. Maybe her Husband signed them and threw them out. Maybe he's an idiot. There are alot of people out there who think when you see that note on the door that you have a registered letter, if you ignore it, it will go away. It will not. So he might just have been ignorant, and there is still the possibility that she is lying.
They'll say "I never got a notice" when for the last ten years they have been avoiding process service by claiming that the addressee is not there. They only make so many attempts.
In the law being reasonable, I think the judge had a conflict of interest. This is common in certain areas of the country and she might never get this fixed. They can cover for each other very well. Believe me.
Just think how dangerous I would be with a brain.
Anyway, there is one more possibility, and I have have seen such a form sent by a collection agency for a hospital bill. Some contracts have a waiver clause to notice for any and all legal actions pertaining to collection of the debt incurred. It is possible that she signed this right their in the dentist's office. People do not read what they sign. That is a BIG mistake. If she signed something containing that clause way back then, there was no fraud under the law. She is screwed.
If I were the judge in the case, I would not have made this ruling in her absence. They are supposed to still have the original affidavits, writs, summons' all with her signature on them. In court I would ask her if she swears under penalty of perjury that she did not recieve them. I would also notify her that if she did commit perjury I will rule against her summarily and put her in jail for perjury. If she then refuses to swear I will say "AHA".
If she does swear I want the handwriting experts. If she lied, off to jail and no house to come out to. That's if she actually lied. If she told the truth there will be more supeonas.
But if she admits to recieving even one of the probably numerous notices, I would rule that she has to pay the fifteen hundred and whatever, and she will be put on a payment plan with the maximum legal interest rate in the jurisdiction. If she defaults on that maybe sell the house.
The point is there was lying going on by one side or the other, or some shady practices.
We might smell a rat, but don't know for sure who it is.
Oh, and if it is proven that she did not lie, she keeps the house and they don't even get the $68. If we are to apply standards to debtors, they has to apply to creditors as well.
These things do have a way of disappearing. Looking like the raping of the poor by the rich, it becomes a sensational human interest story. Later it is found, sometimes, that the supposed victim was not a victim at all.
But, to just be myself I will have to inject my own personal opinion. I think it is ridiculous to fix baby teeth. If they are deformed in ways that could screw up the permament teeth of course, but to fix a cavity ? That is totally ridiculous. And even twenty years ago no dentist did even the most minor of anything to correct a deformity or whatever for sixty eight bucks, that's for a cavity. There are kids with jaw problems and things that will screw them up in later life. In the sixties and seventies I knew plenty of people who just couldn't afford it because it was thousands of dollars. And these were real problems, not cosmetic.
OK, I'm done now.
T
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