- Joined
- Mar 11, 2016
Can midfirst tell the court 'we dont want a lien, we want cash. And here is evidence of Phil never intending to sell the property so the lien is useless to recoup the debt owed'?
Because if I was a judge and this came across my desk, I'd tell Phil to cough up 50k and to go fuck himself. Something about being scummy and disrespect (outright contempt in this case) of the law really gets my goat.
Assuming they can convince a judge the deficiency is not covered by the discharge, yes. I mentioned a lien specifically because it's really a freebie-Phil's not going to live forever and they'd have a claim against the condo even if Kat were added to the deed and mortgage-but garnishment (taking some of his pay) and levies (seizing money from his accounts) are both allowed and, more importantly, are not mutually exclusive. Levies are easier so they'd probably seize the few hundred-few thousand they could take from his accounts before moving onto garnishment or a lien. Garnishment would be very funny to watch because the papers are normally filed with one's employer - Phil would be required to report and withhold from his own "paycheck" to satisfy the court order
.A few things to note though:
* If MidFirst wants to collect, there will be one, possibly two more lawsuits incoming. When the foreclosure trial concludes there will be a deficiency of about $40,000. MidFirst might need a Connecticut judge to certify the deficiency even after the trial is over. From there, they will certainly have to sue Phil in Washington to collect against him. Neither of these would bring any new or interesting information, so the only question for us is whether he no-shows there as well.
* Just because Phil no-showed to the foreclosure suit doesn't automatically entitle MidFirst to a default judgment in Washington. It would be a completely new trial and his behavior in Connecticut would not be relevant.
* If Phil does get sued in Washington and no-shows again, the deficiency is considered to be valid even if it was meant to be discharged in bankruptcy so long as MidFirst can show they made a reasonable effort to inform him of the suit. This is the big silver lining here if Phil's too dumb to understand the idea that it's a new trial.
* Specific to garnishment, the cutoff is 25% of disposable income. So if the bank goes that route we'll get another round of Phil lying to a judge about how he is somehow still living hand to mouth on $120k/year with credit card and mortgage payments eliminated.
EDIT: In the "corner case" where MidFirst sues for collections in WA, wins by default, and the collection is illegitimate from the bankruptcy, Phil would have the right to countersue and have the debt/collection voided without any statute of limitations.
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