Maybe there are no more debtors’ prisons, but that doesn’t mean your life can’t be screwed up by unscrupulous collection agencies.
Sonya Capri Ramos says her Salt Lake City home was sold out from under her in 1996 to pay a collections agency seeking payment for dental work performed on one of Ramos’s daughters. And despite the fact that she had made three years of payments on a $51,000 mortgage, the title changed hands for just $1,550 at a sheriff’s auction.
The bill blew up to $950 from legal and collection fees, and in 1996 she was sued by a collection agency named North American Recovery. She didn’t contest the lawsuit—she claims she was never notified—and the judge ordered that some of her non-exempt real property should be sold to pay off the debt. “But because the real estate at stake was Ramos’s home, which by law is considered ‘indivisible,’ the title to the entire property was sold at auction,” to a company called Jarmaccc Properties—which has refused to give her back the title, even after she paid them the $1,550 through a bankruptcy restructuring in 1998.
“Woman Loses Home Over $68 Dental Bill” [ABC News]
(Photo: Getty Images)
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bsalamon: International Shoe v. Washington changed the territorial analysis done in Pennoyer v. Neff. Generally, the “minimum contacts test” is now used whereas Pennoyer is not.
This is when it’s handy to be an active member of the crips.
@bsalamon:
How is Pennoyer applicable? First off, it’s no longer good law. Second, the judge determined she WAS served. I’m not seeing any connection at all to Pennoyer. Good try though.
Um, that was TEN years ago. Why is it making news today?? (and yes, always pay your dentist!)
@hi: I don’t mean in the article. I mean there has to be something all the sources are missing. Just too much over too little.
She knew about the $68 and intentionally didn’t pay it. Where did that $68 come from when she paid the rest of the bill? Denied insurance claims or just a partial payment? A year later and the debt has increased to almost $1000. She claims no one told her. The courts rule that the money, now $1550 after additional costs, can be collected from her house, and the sheriff (or someone) decides the whole house will go. That’s getting weirder, but she again says no one told her. It gets sold at auction, Jarmaccc (are three c’s necessary?) takes the title, but she still is making payments on the “loan/mortgage.” She, yet again, claims no one told her.
It’s not until two years later that she finds out about this. Strange that in that same year, Jarmaccc instructed her to leave the house, but she claims no one told her of that either. She also claims that at that time she structured a bankruptcy deal to buy the title back from Jarmaccc, she paid the money to them, but didn’t receive a title. Huh?! Then a full six years later, she makes another move on the title. Six years after giving $1550 for nothing in return?
Even if each step can be explained away, that’s a chain of events worthy of Intelligent Design. There’s so much more not being said, probably on both sides of this dispute.
I found the documents from her court case.
[www.morelaw.com]
(second one down)
Apparently the court agreed with her and awarded her house back to her. It was then overturned on appeal because of a technicality.. A staute of limitatons thing.
@eben56:
Statute of limitations isn’t really a “Technicality” in the sense of “they used the wrong form.” That’s a pretty big deal because it probably entirely forecloses any opportunity to get her house back.
@henrygates: “Oh, and after all their failed efforts to find the person, they magically have your correct address and employment information when they walk across the hall to file for wage garnishment.”
They clearly didn’t fail to find out where she lived.
There is something missing from her story. I don’t her.
Lesson: Don’t lie and pay your bills.
@Pylon83:
I only used the term technicality in that basicly the court did rule that her house was taken illegally, (For all the “somethings fishy” crowd), but that she is up s$%t creek anyway because of the time frame.
They should have taken other assets before the home. For example – the TV.
Something is wrong with the story. It could be her, it could be the credit agency, it could be the dentist, it could be her lawyer [probably her lawyer].
This is not illegal, but there is something wrong with the story.
- Not to mention what type of title does the buyer have? I doubt it is fee simple.
There’s got to be more to this story than is posted.
That said, the state of Georgia has (or at least ‘had’ in the 80′s) tough laws about bounced checks. As a teenager, I first went to jail (yes, real pound-you-in-the-ass jail) for a bounced $32 check to a used auto parts place. Nice.
Sure, it’s worse that she lost her house. But state-by-state, there are some pretty harsh laws for debts. Watch out!
@eben56:
The Trial court ruled that it was taken illegally. The Appeals court did not. They didn’t address the issue. They simply reversed on Statute of Limitations grounds.
@maztec: Why is there something wrong with the story? Having a hard time believing that fucked up things like this can happen in the world?
This is one reason to always keep your home title under two names.
@EricaKane:
The sale happened in 1996. She found out about it in 1998, or so she claims. At least, the first indisputable incidents where she had to have known happened in 1998. The month isn’t stated, but there was plenty of time for her to file for bankruptcy AFTER that during that year.
So what exactly is so fishy about that?
@eben56: Okay, some of the facts from that ruling contradict the claims made in the ABC article. I’m making a poor journalism call. I’m still suspicious about her claims to have never received notice from, by my count, four separate entities regarding the issue, and six years is way too damned long to wait.
Great, another story for Universal Healthcare…
This really does sound effed up.
@EricaKane: She declared bankruptcy when the bank told her she didn’t own the property she was taking a loan out against.
So based on the appeal documentation:
March 28, 1996: Property sold to this sleazy property management place.
May 14, 1998: Sleazy property management place sends eviction notice.
Then basically nothing until 2004. May 1 2008, appeal granted. So this saga has been going on for 12 years total.
I don’t know about utah laws, but I’m pretty sure something could be done with relation to squatter’s rights for living for 12 years in a house she technically didn’t own.
I read that link with the case. What the story doesn’t tell you is that she filed for bankruptcy in 1998 and in 2003 it was dismissed because she didn’t pay those bills earlier. And she had listed as a creditor, Jarmacc.
I feel bad for this woman, but she had notice of at least the sale and could have redeemed back in 98. She then filed bankruptcy.
I’d love to know the true story as well, but this is still a scary story. Whatever happened to owning personal property?
Times like this make me glad I have everything set up in complex tax shelters and partnerships without my name directly on it.
@darkrose:
You’re talking about Adverse Possession. It’s a very high burden to meet, and the period is usually longer than 12 years. Depends on the state though.
@heavylee-again:
You won’t post the Jarmaccc details, but I will, it’s public info:
JARMACCC PROPERTIES, L.L.C.
10 W BROADWAY NO 800
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Registered Agent: RALPH C PETTY [same address]
Phone: (801) 220-0900
Toll Free: (866) 975-0900
Fax: (801) 220-0907
Petty is a lawyer & has a website [www.ralphpettylaw.com]
@Edge23: What a valuable lesson….don’t skip out on a $68 bill, or we’ll take your house. What ever happened to “let the punishment fit the crime”?
yes, I agree with some of the other posters. This cannot be the entire story.
There is always an appeal process. Did she even try to go to court?
Something is missing in this story.
There is no way someone paying a mortgage is going to let their house be sold over 950 dollars(or 68 dollars if you want to get technical as the extra fees are completely crap). Common sense dictates she was not notified. And unless they can prove she was, I don’t believe it for a second. And by prove, I want something signed by her or her own admission that she knew. An obscure sign posted on her property or a newspaper ad doesn’t mean crap. How can you sell someone’s home without documenting the notification?
Collection agencies in this country need some severe regulation. I’ve had a company threaten to ruin my credit and sue me over a debt I didn’t owe. I had to get the state attorney general involved to get them to drop the “case.”
@SexierThanJesus: She had more than enough time to pay her debt.
The ‘punishment’ is fair.
She is a liar now going to the media to play the victim card.
It’s not unscrupulous. It’s totally legal and oftentimes on of the only ways to enforce payment of bills.
This woman ignored the bill when she should have paid it. When she got the legal notices, she ignored them instead of paying the bill or hiring an attorney. Tough noogies. That is what happens when you ignore liens and legal summons.
Yes, this is sucky for her. Also, it was entirely her fault.
Regardless of the circumstances, it looks like this lady got F-ed out of her home. Once the deed changes hands, game over.
Knowing collection agencies, the agents failed to send any notification of the debt to her , or the legal preceedings thereof, and took her home clean and legal.
She probably found all this out FROM her bank(We transferred the deed to XXX….) , when its too late to do anything about it. Truly sad.
@tikuahote: Because the court decision is from this month.
Their weasel excuse was “you waited too long”. Uh… that doesn’t get her her house back and she’s still screwed.
@Voyou_Charmant: Amen.
Sounds like this has to be illegal for them to do over a $68 bill.
Granted, for a $51,000 mortgage it couldn’t have been much of a house…
When you live by the predatory Capitalistic sword, you die by the predatory Capitalistic sword. Wake up, America. We’re becoming cogs in the International Corporate machine because so many idiots vote Republican seemingly unaware that they are seen as profit fodder in the eyes of GOP, nothing else.
National security? Family values? Come on, folks, coporate profits is the only thing that matters in the US. Oh, let the markets decide. Competition is good. No government intervention in business. Citizens, stop buying this bullcrap. Who gets more tax cuts and government handouts than big business? Who stifles competition more than big business?
You gun-totin’, bible-thumpin’, xenophobic, anti-book-learnin’ illiterate morons who vote Republican are getting played by the GOP.
It’s a wonder more people haven’t lost their homes for an unpaid dental bill.
Freedom and individual liberty is dead. Long live The Machine.
@EricaKane: You mean the 1998 bankruptcy filing she initiated upon discovering someone else owned her house? Someone else, like, say, the creditor she had listed? Oh, yeah, I suppose that’d make sense, wouldn’t it?
I think we’re missing a lot of information here. The Consumerist article says that the judge ordered that some of her non-exempt real property should be sold to pay off the debt. Now, it’s been a while since I worked as a bankruptcy paralegal, so things very well may have changed, but under federal exemption guidelines, a person’s homestead was considered to be “exempt.” Non-exempt real property would be something like a vacation home. So if the judge ordered the sale of *non-exempt* property and they sold her home, then we’re either missing information or something went terribly wrong.
Click here to send an email to the asshole through a web form on his website.
[www.ralphpettylaw.com]
This sounds like a variation on a title scam on the part of the collections agency. Basically, there is probably a form signed by “her” that releases the agency to transfer title or to auction the exempt property.
Outside of probably not hearing the full story. If we did hear it, here is my major problem with the precedent this sets.
I have a random collection agency after me for the last 7 years for a debt that I never owed. I contest it, it’s passed to someone else. Quickly I realized that even I could, as a business, say someone owed me money. They contest the charge and I simply sell it to a collection agency for 50-100% of the amount I claimed is owed, only documentation I need is an invoice and 50-90 days of non-payment. Then that person, by my hand, joins credit hell. There are no real safe laws governing my sending out random charges claiming services rendered, not getting a payment after a period of them contesting the charges and then selling it to a credit agency.
I think this sets in place a HUGE security hole if this is all true for us in America.
That $200 charge comes from a company I never had dealings with, yet after 15 different collections companies it has ballooned to over $1500 and they don’t have record of what it was originally. I happen to have it, yet legally the originator of the charge claimed has no further responsibility over it because of the nature of the collections company it was sold to.
I have even gone ahead and paid this debt 2 times and yet it still floats around as if I owe it.
I can’t believe how sick things are getting here in the USA.
@-J-: “I have even gone ahead and paid this debt 2 times and yet it still floats around as if I owe it.”
I don’t think the problem here is not you.
This case is taught in many first-years property classes in law school as a good example of a bad holding. Technically, a creditor could docket a judgement fior as little as $1 against a debtor’s real property and force a sale of the debtor’s home (which the purchaser would buy subject to any underlying mortgage). That being said, most judges would consider such a remedy both unjust and extraordinary and would not permit the foreclosure. Why this particular judge allowed it is the subject of speculation, but the conventional wisdom in 1996 was that an appeals court would overturn it and instruct the trial court to craft another–more reasonable–remedy.