Barbarians at the Gates

Are “Strategic Defaulters” Barbarians at the Gates of Rome?

Are people who are “strategically” defaulting on their home mortgages akin to barbarians looting Rome? Does the fact that more people are defaulting result in a weakening of the rule of law in our society? Justice Litle writes convincingly that the rise of strategic defaults means our country is on the road to ruin. But I would argue that it is not the strategic defaulters who are greasing our descent into hell. They’re just minor bit players in an overall drama.

This Happened because of Accounting Regulations

The changes to the accounting regulations governing how banks and other financial institutions report the value of their speculative holdings have done the real damage to our economy. Strategic defaults are merely an inevitable consequence of that change. Specifically, before March of 2009, banks were required to mark their investments to market. “Marking to market” means that a company holding assets must periodically reassign values to its assets for book-keeping purposes.

An example of that would be a stock market account. Every night-and actually at all times during the day-you can look at your stock market account and get an up to the minute idea of the value of the stocks you hold. That is easy for stocks, which are priced by the market on a continual basis, but much harder for more complicated assets. Marking to the market means that the company must attempt to determine the current market value of its assets at certain intervals. And in the case of the banks, the values of these assets can determine whether the bank is insolvent or running afoul of reserve requirements.

When mortgage backed securities (mbses) became “troubled” banks and investment firms were being forced to show large losses of capital, losses which in fact revealed that years of wild speculation had left the banks in a precarious position. Rather than allow the market to sort things out and deep-six some of the largest banks in existence, several bail-outs were instituted.

The most important of the bail-outs was perhaps least publicized: the dropping of the mark to market requirement. Under the new FASB regulations, banks are permitted to assign “historical” values to their investments. If they paid a dollar for mbses, they could carry the mbses as assets worth a dollar even though they had become worthless. This equally applies to home mortgages themselves. Many people call this “mark to make-believe.” Notice that the banks balance sheets then lost any relationship to reality, and any investor relying on the supposed strength of the underlying business was defrauded.

With a stroke of that pen, the banks became “solvent” again, the banking crisis was over, and the 2009 “bull market” began. Well. It sounded good, anyway. But the changes actually were an early abandonment of the “transparency” Obama claimed to want to restore to government and a wholesale adoption of fraudulent accounting within the very heart of our economy. The “bull market” that followed, and all the claims of “economic recovery,” have rested on the deception permitted by that regulatory change. And the rosy condition of the largest banks is a deception. Despite the regulatory changes, banks have been shut down at historic rates this year, and many of them are holding mbses which they have valued for their book-keeping purposes as 100% or more in excess of their actual value.

Banks with their Hands Tied

Of critical importance to the strategic home mortgage defaulters, however, is the fact that the banks are maintaining mortgages at their “historic” rather than (much smaller) actual value. Foreclosing is a historical event that would force a revaluation of the assets under the regulations.

That means the banks cannot foreclose on mortgages without revealing their actual financial condition, and since their actual condition is insolvency, their hands are tied. Accordingly, the banks have adopted a policy of “extend and pretend.” They are extending the loans and pretending they were not in default. But this has left observant, savvy people free to stop paying their mortgages but still remain in their houses, and naturally more of them are doing so as they see others doing it.

Bothered by Debt Collectors

Debt – both a personal problem and a social issue

We know that if you are facing any kind of debt problems – and most definitely if you are being sued or threatened with suit – you have a situation facing you, personally, that is extremely important. We take that very seriously, and most of our efforts are designed to help you solve the problem on a personal basis. If you’re being sued, for example, that means we want you to win – and then to repair your credit report so that it doesn’t hurt you anymore.

If you are being harassed by debt collectors or have a negative credit report already, we want to help you fix those things at the personal level. Thus we are strong and committed advocates for you. We’re on your side all the way.

There’s also a social justice issue here which is worth keeping in mind. You will not always find the courts sympathetic to you or willing to listen – or to do their job at all, frankly. We believe that this reflects a larger issue where the powers that be seem to think it is perfectly fine to rob from the poor and give to the rich. In this area, we think that the more people who represent themselves in cases like this, and the stronger and better you are at standing up for yourself… the better everybody else will be. And the more who do it, the better for everyone. So we are also strong social advocates.

In other words, sometimes the courts may seem unwilling to listen to you or actually hostile. If you persist, though, you will still have an excellent chance to win.

Stand up for yourself in every way. Don’t let the debt collectors rip you off – which they will certainly do if you give them the chance. Fight back! Even if you used the credit card or borrowed the money, you have to defend yourself to make sure they don’t get any more than they should and don’t do any more harm than they’re entitled to. And in reality, you have a really great chance to win. Completely.

The law is an adversary system, and the up-side to the fact that if you don’t take care of yourself the debt collectors will rip you off is that if you do take care of yourself you will probably be in better shape than you can even imagine possible right now.

Vehicle Repossession and Breach of Contract Lawsuit

Vehicle repossession is not “debt law” in the sense we mean it at our site.

If you’ve read many of our materials, you know that we consider debt law as good as it gets for self-representation. That is because debt buyers buy vast quantities of debt and essentially take a “factory” approach to bill collecting and lawsuits. You can expect pretty much every case brought by a debt buyer to follow a similar approach – the petitions are almost always virtually identical, and the whole process is usually shoddy. Typically, the debt collectors don’t have what they would need to win a contested fight – and they don’t want to get what they would need to win because they are designed to catch the 80 – 90% of the people who do not fight.

And debt cases are “document-intensive,” meaning that the debt collector’s whole case will usually depend on getting some documents into evidence.  There is very little testimony and no expert witnesses. So that means a pro se litigant can focus on a few simple evidentiary questions and not worry too much about arranging testimony or other trial tactics.

But our materials do not apply to vehicle repossessions and the surrounding issues. Those cases present a different set of issues and opportunities.

What is a “Vehicle Repossession?”

When you buy a car on credit, you will typically sign a contract agreeing to pay a certain amount per month (plus a variety of other terms, obviously). And these contracts and their terms are, in general, a terrible, terrible deal for the customer. One of these terms is a lien and right to repossession, and there is a whole body of somewhat specialized law on all of the repossession process.

If you fail to make payments, the company may have installed tracking and disabling devices in the car – so the car may stop working. And then the repo guys come and get the car. And then the REAL scam begins.

When dealers repossess a vehicle, they are not “collecting a debt.” They are, in legalistic terms, exercising their liens and cutting off your right to a security. It looks like a collection, and it is one, but the law of most jurisdictions does not see it that way.

Still, the idea is for them to get their money back, and what they plan to do is sell the vehicle at an auction.Early in the process, then – before they get your car – you can talk to them and negotiate terms more effectively than later.

Once they get your car, they will want to sell it. If they do this in a “commercially reasonable” way, you will be on the hook for whatever amount of your car note remains. And inevitably, this is a shocking amount. For various reasons (some good and some bad) the courts are extremely lenient as to what constitutes “commercially reasonable.”

But the fact is that the dealers get almost nothing for the cars they repo. They sell them to each other, at auction, so this is one of the all-time scams – and the courts wink at it. In any event, repossession law focuses extensively on this question of “commercially reasonable” and on certain notice provisions. State laws in this area are complex for most people, and the court decisions are not easy to understand.

And the car dealerships have stacked the deck in most cases. Their lawyers specialize in this law, know the facts of the cases they bring (much more than debt collectors, anyway), and will almost always have the contract you signed. They’ll have people who can swear to them, too, because most car dealerships are built around the repossession process.

This doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance to win. It just means that this isn’t the best kind of law to go pro se. Fortunately, if you are broke, most of the legal service organizations that help people without money are good at this. It’s a problem a lot of people with money problems have. We suggest you find one of these places – many law schools have clinics that do this, too – and see if you can get help.

If you can’t do that, it still makes sense to fight, and on a simple dollar basis, joining us to help you do that will probably be worth your money. Your chances of winning aren’t great, but they do use a factory approach, and some of our tools will apply to that. And by fighting you can reduce some of the damage they will do to you.

Repossession and Suit to Collect the Difference Happen Fast

Unfortunately, vehicle repossession cases can happen very quickly. Our advice is to make every effort to find help. Filing an answer by yourself could very well hurt your case. If you must do it by yourself, our membership can give you SOME help – and in that case you simply must join and talk to us before answering the suit. Trying to represent yourself without any help is just not a good idea.

Our Case Evaluation Service

One of the services we provide to members and non-members alike is a “case evaluation.” It’s a great deal for people being sued by debt collectors who would like some guidance about their case. We do not recommend this service for people facing vehicle repossession, though. If you send us one, we will have to spend the time to figure things out (so we will keep your money for the time we must spend) – and then we’ll almost certainly give you pretty much what we say here. Save your money and your time and look for a lawyer who can handle this case for you.

Copy of the FDCPA

If you have any kind of debt problems or just want to understand the laws that apply to debt collection, you should start with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

For most purposes, who the FDCPA covers and what it requires and allows are easily found just by googling the act. But sometimes you need the actual statute. And here it is free to download fdcpatext.

How Debt Troubles Start

Life History of a Debt

This continues the series of videos for people being harassed or sued for debt, and in this video we’ll look at the way debts evolve – from bills you can pay without problem, to bills you do have problems paying (or don’t want to pay), through the “charge-off” and sale of the debt to the debt collector.

Tomorrow we’ll lok at the “moral” duty to pay debts, and then we’ll move on to possible solutions to debt troubles.

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Talking with Debt Collectors

If you have debt troubles at all, you’re probably going to be getting calls from debt collectors. Should you answer them and speak to the debt collectors? If so, what should you say? Usually you should not say anything at all, but if you have something you need to say, say it and then hang up.

Most of the Time, Silence Is Golden

Most of the time you should not be talking to debt collectors unless you have a specific, well-defined reason to do so. Otherwise, you can end up making their life a lot easier – and yours a lot harder.

There is almost no reason to talk to a debt collector. If you HAVE all the money they want, and you want to pay it, then it would make sense to negotiate. If you think you have enough to make a deal, you might also negotiate, but you should remember not to admit anything. YOU CAN ALWAYS NEGOTIATE A SETTLEMENT WITHOUT ADMITTING THAT YOU OWE THE MONEY.  People ask me that all the time – and yet everybody knows that companies settle lawsuits all the time without admitting they did anything wrong. You can do it because the assertion of a claim, or the threat (or existence) of a lawsuit is a threat. You settle to make that threat go away.

If you don’t have enough money to make a deal for at least 70% of the debt, it’s usually a bad idea to attempt to negotiate beyond a very preliminary stage. The person you’re talking to doesn’t have authority to make such a deal. So you can say you might pay 10% of the debt, but it would make no sense in attempting to negotiate beyond that. You will need to talk to someone higher in authority. You could ask to speak to that person.

Beyond that, anything you say will likely just be wasting your energy and time and may lead to other trouble. Remember that your dispute, in order to force verification, needs to be in writing, so you can tell the debt collector you dispute the debt but don’t forget the dispute letter.

Should you Pay a Debt Collector?

Should You Ever Give a Debt Collector Money? And What If You Have?

Should you ever give a debt collector money? You could be asking for big trouble if you do.

Giving the debt collectors money can have many bad legal results. It can revive a debt, starting the statute of limitations all over again. And the debt collectors will argue that you admitted the debt if you make a payment. So should you ever make a payment? Rarely. And you should make a part-payment even far less often than that.

Instead, you could make a payment if you have a written agreement AND HAVE IN YOUR POSSESSION at that very moment all the money you agree to pay. If it’s an old debt, agreeing to terms to pay over time is a recipe for disaster.

Defend Yourself – No one Else Will

If you’re being sued, you’re going to have to defend yourself – there’s no magical solution, and you will lose if you ignore the suit. Please don’t think that just because you’ve never heard of this debt or don’t think you owe it for any reason, you will win. Once you’ve been served with a lawsuit, you will lose if you don’t take steps to win it. Nothing is automatic.

And the lawyer on the other side just wants to win as quickly as possible. He or she has very little interest in “doing the right thing.” It’s up to you to protect yourself.

If you are being sued for debt, you must defend yourself. What that means, very simply, is actually proving you don’t owe the money to anyone – or, more likely, that the plaintiff cannot prove you owe it to it. There are simple ways to do this (not necessarily easy), and our job is to help you use those methods.

Anything that promises or appears to be an easy or automatic way to win is probably a mistake or a scam.

No Free Lunches

There are other products out there for people being sued for debt, and some of them will encourage you to invoke magic words like “fractional reserve banking” or other concepts which, though legitimate in their place, will not drive the debt collectors out of your life.

Remember that there are no free lunches for regular people in this world. The judges are not concerned about the U.S. Money supply or system, and they are not concerned about any abstract rights of yours at all. You’ll be lucky if you have a judge who understands what hearsay is and doesn’t want to allow the debt collector to use it. Trust me on this. If this case reaches litigation, you must be prepared to understand the way debt law actually works, tell the judge how it works, and hold the judge to his or her job of making sure the trial is fair.

Luckily you can do all that. If you spend your time invoking the ghost of Andrew Jackson or fighting the monster of Jeckyl Island, claiming that the government sold you somewhere as part of the Social Security program, or other, similar ideas, you will lose the case. Debt collectors have a tough time proving what they must prove to be able to win. Don’t let your desire for a shortcut to victory make you lose.

You Can Beat the Debt Collector

(Even If You Couldn’t Win the Lawsuit!)

If you’re being sued, I’m sure you’re scared. Everyone is. But hear this: you have a very good chance to win the suit if you stand up for yourself. Believe it or not, if you know what you’re doing, the odds are actually stacked in your favor against a debt collector. And it isn’t that hard to learn what you need to know to take them on and beat them.

And even more important, if you stand up for yourself, you will probably beat the debt collector even if you couldn’t win the suit. Read on to see why this is true.

Some Very Basic Facts You Need To Know

If people would stand up for themselves, debt collectors would have a very hard time making any money. Lucky for them, most people don’t stand up for themselves.

The Debt Collector’s Problems

The debt collector will have a lot of problems if you stand up for yourself. They usually don’t have the records they need to prove their case even if you actually did owe the money. And more often than you might expect, you don’t owe them the money because of certain time limits or because they can’t prove they own the debt. They also have certain even bigger practical difficulties that you can use to protect yourself if you know how to find them.

FEAR-The Debt-Collector’s Best Friend

Because the debt collectors would have such a hard time winning if you fight back, they rely on the terror of the collection process to scare you into settling the case or giving up altogether. This fear of the legal process is the most important weapon the debt collectors have. If you can handle that, chances are you’ll get off scott-free. That’s why YourLegalLegUp litigation materials explain how the debt collection business operates from top to bottom.

You Have Almost Nothing To Lose

Strange as it may seem, now that you’ve been dragged into this suit, most of the bad has already happened. It costs very little to fight if you do it yourself. And if the company wins, they are going to get the same thing (in almost every case) whether you fight or not. In other words, it won’t get worse if you fight.

And if you fight and win, as I explain in the section about counterclaims, not only will you not owe them anything, but they may have to pay you.

In other words, you have basically nothing to lose by fighting and everything to win!

Why You Have a Chance to Win

You actually have a very good chance of winning the lawsuit filed against you- if you stand up for yourself. Look at the lawsuit filed against you-the “Petition” it’s usually called. It may look like it was done carelessly, and it probably was. But the paragraphs of the petition say the things the debt company would have to prove to the court-if you stand up for yourself.

They have to prove the existence of a “contract,” or some obligation for you to pay. They have to prove they own the right to sue you. And they have to prove the amount you owe. You might think they could easily do that, but in fact it is difficult if not impossible for them to prove these things.

Blaming Banks for the Problems they Caused

Has it occurred to you that all or most of your problems were caused by the very bank that is now suing you or that the debt collector purchased the debt from and is now suing you for? Some people argue that you could use that as a defense against their claims against you.

It will not.

Blaming the banks is a kind of “unclean hands” argument, and as far as I’m concerned, it is absolutely justified in a moral sense. The courts won’t see it that way, though.

Proximate Cause

The problem with arguing that “the banks” caused your problems is “proximate cause.” Proximate cause means the “specific problem” must be linked to specific actions by a specific entity. Viewed in that light, how can you argue that, say, Capital One, by extending credit cards and maintaining their policies, has really “caused” anything to happen in society? Many people may believe that the banks, collectively, caused big problems that resulted in raising taxes and sucking resources away from regular people, but how can you assign a specific role in that to Capital One?

Likewise, how do you prove that Capital One caused you problems that you could not have, and should not have, overcome? If we were truly in a capitalistic society the argument simply could not be made: the fact that you did not overcome the problem would be proof that you should not have done so. But we live in an age of bailouts and government interference, of course.

Tell that to the judge, a life-time public employee wielding far-reaching government power every day of his or her professional life.

And then the final zinger: how do you prove what specific action by your specific bank caused some specific injury to you?

Cigarette Litigation

This whole complex of proximate cause issues prevented anyone from winning cigarette litigation for decades. What finally allowed people to get through and win some of the cases was very strong evidence of conspiracy to hide specific facts that the companies knew and had a duty to disclose. There may be evidence of banking conspiracy – there is in some cases – but unlike a cigarette plaintiff who died of lung cancer, you will be hard pressed to show how your injury came from the banks’ action unless there are more specific grounds for applying the doctrine of unclean hands.

Cutting Edge Arguments and a Warning

As I say, I have my sympathies for the position that banks should not be permitted to profit from disasters they themselves caused. And many arguments that end up winning started out as sounding a little far-fetched. So you could consider it. On the other hand, the courts sometimes punish what they consider to be “frivolous” arguments and disputes. Arguments talking about banks and banking, like arguments claiming that our monetary system is completely corrupt live on the edge of “frivolousness” from the point of view of the courts. It would be possible that they could make you pay for taking that position.

 

We can help either way. Click on the Articles button on the menu bar above to go to publically available videos and articles,

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