Almost a year ago, Sonya Capri Ramos was in the news because she’d lost her home over a $68 dental bill. Last week, the Utah Court of Appeals gave her some hope that she might be able to get it back from the title company that bought it at auction for $1,550.

The trouble started in 1995, when Ramos failed to pay off the last of a dental bill. The debt was sold to a collections agency, and it quickly ballooned up to $950. The collections agency sued her for the money, but Ramos claims she never knew about the lawsuit, and at any rate she didn’t contest it. A judge subsequently ordered some of her property sold to pay it off, but since the title to her home is considered indivisible, the entire thing was sold to pay the collections agency. A group of investors bought it at auction, and although Ramos says she paid the group $1,550 in 1998, they have refused to return the title to her.

Last May, the court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired and Ramos couldn’t dispute the investors’ claim to the title.

But she may have a second chance. According to this AP article sent to us by reader Pdxguy,

The Utah Court of Appeals ruled Capri Ramos is entitled to another opportunity to void the sale of her house at a county auction for $1,550.

[…]

On Thursday, the Utah Court of Appeals sent the case to 3rd District Court for a hearing on whether Ramos had proper notice of the sheriff’s sale and whether the sale price was “grossly inadequate.”

“Utah woman loses home over unpaid $68 dental bill” [The Columbus Dispatch]

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