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OT - legal question on a lien

N

Nancy Howell

Well-known Member
I applied for a home equity loan on my property in Dallas.

The Credit Union found a lien against my property. The lien is against Daniel R. Howell and Nancy A. Howell for $294,873.75. Lien allows for 10% interest per annum and was filed in 1995. Lien was filed in Bexar County, Texas.

I have never lived in Bexar County, don't know who Daniel R. Howell is and the dob of this other Nancy Howell is different, but they still filed it against my property.

I have sent a copy of the lien to my attorney. If I said I was furious, that would be an understatement.

Since my attorney is out of the office, my question is how difficult is it going to be to get this off my property?
 

File suit against those who filed the lien against you. They will withdraw it quickly. + get some damages in a settlement for your dropping the suit.
 
You already did the right thing first...getting your attorney involved. All we can do is offer support that it gets resolved quickly and without much hassle.
 

I doubt if it will be difficult at all. If you have to consult a lawyer, sue for damages and legal fees.

This false identification get old. I have had 2 collection agencies call me for some other person with the same name who had a bad debt. One of these people had a different middle name. Needless to say, I was rather abrupt with them. BTW, one of them asked for the last 4 numbers of my SS. Needless to say, I didn't give it to them. I understand if someone has your last 4 numbers they can get the rest.

In casual conversation with my lawyer, he mentioned that sometimes liens were not removed in a timely manner even after being paid, so you will have to keep checking. Also I would check your credit reports.

Maybe that's some of the rich Howells who are tossing these big debts around. Rich people do that, you know.

KEH
 
Nancy: Your state law will be the governing factor here!!! I had a friend go through this (his dad died and there was another person with same name bad debt so they put liens on my friend and his fathers place) End result it was a time consuming mess to clean up. My thoughts are 1. you may be able to go to court and have the lien removed. 2. Forget about suing them and getting $500,000 in punitive damage as I don't see it happening. 3. you may be on the hook if this was an ex husband or part of a diviorce!!!! seen that situation also!!!
 
Don't know. We had a guy come in to Board of Review a few years ago and said his property was up for foreclosure sale. He had inherited it from his parents and they were so tight that I doubt there was ever a lien against it to begin with. We sent him to the Court House. I don't know what he had to go through,but apparently he got it cleared up. I asked his brother last fall how he came out and he said he didn't know anything about it.
 
I have dealt with this at work on a few R/E deals before where there was a lien no one knew existed. If this lien was placed after you bought the property and there is no corresponding paperwork for the debt you should be able to get it removed. I would do what you did and have your attorney contact the party whom filed the lien. If it's any sort of a reputable lending institution they should promptly remove the lien. If the lien was there before you bought the property it could be another case. A title search should have been performed giving clean title to the property when you bought it. If this was done incorrectly you can go back against the attorney or title insurance company and have them clean it up and it should be no cost to you. I do not know the laws in Texas by any means so things could be a bit different there.
 
The lien is from a company, not a lending institution. I bought the property in 91, the lien was put on in 95.
 
Like others on here, I can't/won't offer advice on how to proceed. You're already doing it by contacting your attorney. A couple of comments though:
- Few weeks ago, I was at a house I bought a while ago and just added our kids to the deed. Found a notice on the garage door: "urgent call this number immediately". It was from a car repossession company that came out looking to repossess a car from a person with the same name as my daughter (who I just added to the deed). They said they scan the public records databases looking for people. Don't try and cross-reference anything to see if its the right person. Pretty indiscriminate.
- As for liens, I used to be on the board of our homeowners association and we'd put liens on people's houses for non-payment of the annual dues ($25/year). Interest would be added and we always got our money at closing when the party tried to sell the house. Got quite a few calls from people who were mad that they had to cough up several hundred dollars before the sale could go through. I loved to take those calls because they thought they were getting away with something only to find out they weren't.
 
Heard from my attorney. He said the lien is only good for 10 yrs unless they renew it. In his opinion, its not a problem. I disagreed. First of all $294,873 plus 10% interest each year comes to over $500,000. If someone owed me that much money, you can bet I would renew the lien.

I told our attorney I wanted the lien removed. I did not want to "wait and see" if it dropped off.
 
Nancy, in Missouri, anyone can file a lien against anyone with the same name.
My dad went through the same thing while getting a loan for the paid for house.

Someone with the same name had bad debts and everyone in the county that had the same name when applying for a loan would get the same notice but only when they were getting a loan or selling their house.

He had to go to county courthouse and sign an affidavit stating that this debt was not his.

Then he had to send a copy from the county relieving him of the responsibility.
Not easy and a pain in the .....
 
I'm with you, Nancy!

I'd make sure the lien is removed and that the title to your property is 100 percent CLEAR.

You sure don't want any hassles/surprises when you finally get to ditch that place in The Big D to head to the farm to retire with Mr. James.
 
the reply about "it won't be difficult" if you involve an att., it's already difficult....good luck
 
You need to look into filing an affidavit "one and the same" - it's available on the web, get it signed and notarized and provide to the bank/title company - they may even have the form for you.

FWIW - liens are picked up by name at the recorders office/courthouse so you really have no recourse against the original filer.
 
I would like to know what you find out. I get a call ever so often. About my property in Utah having a lien on it.Keep telling them it is not me. Never been to Utah,never owned any property in that state.But they keep calling.
 
I suspect that rather than someone "filing" a lien against your specific property, it is actually a money judgment that someone got against Dan and the other Nancy Howell in Bexar County, and the creditor also filed it in your county, probably because the creditor thought the debtor had real estate in your county. Judgments automatically become encumbrances (or liens, if you will) against all real property of the debtor in all counties in which the judgment is filed. Its automatic- they didn't know about you or your property, they just wanted to encumber any property that Dan and Nancy 2 had in your county. Its the curse of the common name- if your name was something like Gnixl or Trzebiatowski, you wouldn't have this problem.

The other type of "lien" is a labor lien, materialman's lien, crop lien, or other lien against specific property for work done on that property- That type of lien has to specifically identify the property. I'd bet the ranch that this is not that type of situation.

The creditor is entitled to his lien against Dan and Nancy 2, so you can't get it taken off the county records; however, the title companies have procedures by which you can have the encumbrance cleared from your property, by providing sufficient evidence that you are not the Nancy Howell in question.

I don't know the law in Texas (at least, the law east of the Pecos), but it sound similar to Washington: A judgment is a lien against real property for 10 years, with option to renew for another 10. Check with the title company to see if it was renewed, and if not, they should just drop it off your title report on account of the age of it.
 
I know of schafers in southeast utah from 15 years ago. Would be interested in what town or county the lein is in?
 
You are doing the correct thing in calling your attorney. All I can add is to get it totally removed.

A good friend of mine in Dubuque just about had his house sold at sheriff sale. Someone had borrowed money using his name and physical location but with a PO box for mail. They borrowed $100,000 at over 15% interest. This was 5-6 years ago. That was when they would loan to you if you could see over the counter. It cost his several thousand dollars and many sleepless nights.
 

I had a similar thing several years ago on my farm loan. The credit union suggested that I request copies of my credit reports and get them cleared up. TransUnion was the worse to deal with, they had 20 + bad debts transposed onto my account. The social security number of the other guy with my name did match mine. I had to call them four different times until I got a real person that could actually pull up my account and look at the social security numbers. The judgements (?) went away once the other guys records were removed from my account.

Your situation may be something different but I would suggest checking the reports if you have not done so recently. You are entitled to a free report from each company once per year - there are three credit rating companies.
 
The first thing I'd do is call the Lienholder and get hold of someone in charge and explain the problem and that they have put a lien on your property not the person they have the judgement against.They might surprise you and get it taken off.
 
I have no idea. But I get a call about twice a year.Keep telling them they have the wrong person.But they keep calling.
 
You did the right thing by contacting your attorney, a good attorney can make problems like this disappear pretty darn quick. You're probably out the cost of the attorney, don't know how or if you can recover that.

Don't be surprised if after this goes away it comes back. Businesses with bad or noncollectable debts often sell them for pennies on the dollar, someone else buys them and attempts to collect them using the same tactics that failed,sometime when they come back it's fairly easy to get money from the collector as they have a responsibility to verify the authenticity of the debt and that legal action it hasn't occurred to nullify the debt.

One of my employees had his car repossessed, this bothered him as he paid cash for it and had a clear title. Seems the finance company's agent liked his car better than the neighbor's (the one with the lien) they had to get right with him on that. I suspect you're in the same boat, you have more stuff to take than the actual debtor.

A Realtor I know has had problems with Bank of America trying to repossess her house, again they paid cash. Seems Bank of America has a mortgage on it, it was satisfied when they bought the house but BOA can't figure that out. She was trying to be nice, I told her she needs to get real ornery with the guy BOA has hired to "secure" the property and BOA. BOA legal will slither and slime to avoid going to court and dodge any judgement but the contractor will have to pony up $ to avoid jail and after a while BOA won't be able to get contractors or they'll require more proof and indemnification by BOA.
 
The lienholder hasn't put a lien on anything or anyone. They have simply filed their judgment in Nancy's county, and the title company has picked it up as possibly being against her and her property, because of the name similarity. As soon as Nancy furnishes evidence that she's a different person, the title company will remove the exception on the title report.
 
Been down the same name road too. Bottom feeder debt collectors don't do their homework and be sure they're hassling the actual debtor. I've had a few call me over a guy with my same first and last name but different middle name. They always want to confirm social numbers. When they won't take get lost for an answer, I say sue me. None of them have ever taken me up on that.
 
At my age and temperment level now-a-days, I am just not going to take much crap anymore. If someone trys to sue me, or mess with me I am just gonna tell em I am loading up the AR-15 and however long it takes me to get to their location is how long they have to get it straightened out or quit whatever they are doing to screw with me.

Tired of people hiding behind crooked or confusing laws written by other crooks.

Gene
 
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