I'm a retired lawyer, and completely agree. Several times I represented defendants in actions by collection agencies on supposedly assigned credit card debt. The same thing happened - they had a ledger but no original documents. They had no ability to prove the debt really existed.
I'm a retired lawyer, and completely agree. Several times I represented defendants in actions by collection agencies on supposedly assigned credit card debt. The same thing happened - they had a ledger but no original documents. They had no ability to prove the debt really existed.
@Matt Taibbi, is it possible that what you observed were not evictions, but foreclosures? In many states, foreclosures are a court process. I'm told they're often done in a "rocket docket." Simply being foreclosed upon doesn't evict the former owner, however. The new owner of the home still has to file and win a lawsuit if the former owner doesn't leave.
OK, yes, Wikipedia tells me you reported on rocket docket *foreclosures* back during the 2010 housing crisis. Please, please, it's an important difference. Eviction plaintiffs aren't predatory institutional lenders.
@MattTaibbi I had to look up the term "rocket docket evictions," and I'm a landlord-tenant lawyer. Also, by "note holder," do you mean the owner of the rental property? That seems impossible, because the owner, or the manager for the owner, has to be the plaintiff in the lawsuit. Maybe in whatever state you witnessed this in, there's some eviction procedure other than a lawsuit?
I'm extremely curious, because in California, absolutely any defendant who gets an attorney and fights an eviction (and free defense attorneys are easy to get) can easily make the process cost $20,000 or more to the property owner. And even before COVID, it took a few months.
Might be something to look into in the context of private student collections. This ledger was so cursory, as you say, there's no way anyone could have identified who actually owned the note, or even where it came from. Someone could have easily just made it up. And Plaintiff had the balls to sign under penalty of perjury that this was the only evidence that my loan had ever existed. I'm very sure they were just running a boiler room operation to either scare people into settling, or get defaults where they could. There's no way they could have taken my case to trial with any reasonable expectation of prevailing.
I'm a retired lawyer, and completely agree. Several times I represented defendants in actions by collection agencies on supposedly assigned credit card debt. The same thing happened - they had a ledger but no original documents. They had no ability to prove the debt really existed.
Saw this a lot in “rocket docket” evictions. No one had any clue who the current note holder was in a bunch of the cases.
@Matt Taibbi, is it possible that what you observed were not evictions, but foreclosures? In many states, foreclosures are a court process. I'm told they're often done in a "rocket docket." Simply being foreclosed upon doesn't evict the former owner, however. The new owner of the home still has to file and win a lawsuit if the former owner doesn't leave.
OK, yes, Wikipedia tells me you reported on rocket docket *foreclosures* back during the 2010 housing crisis. Please, please, it's an important difference. Eviction plaintiffs aren't predatory institutional lenders.
Eviction plaintiffs are predators.
How do you define predator, and what do you base that belief on?
And what's your proposed solution to the problem as you see it?
@MattTaibbi I had to look up the term "rocket docket evictions," and I'm a landlord-tenant lawyer. Also, by "note holder," do you mean the owner of the rental property? That seems impossible, because the owner, or the manager for the owner, has to be the plaintiff in the lawsuit. Maybe in whatever state you witnessed this in, there's some eviction procedure other than a lawsuit?
I'm extremely curious, because in California, absolutely any defendant who gets an attorney and fights an eviction (and free defense attorneys are easy to get) can easily make the process cost $20,000 or more to the property owner. And even before COVID, it took a few months.
Might be something to look into in the context of private student collections. This ledger was so cursory, as you say, there's no way anyone could have identified who actually owned the note, or even where it came from. Someone could have easily just made it up. And Plaintiff had the balls to sign under penalty of perjury that this was the only evidence that my loan had ever existed. I'm very sure they were just running a boiler room operation to either scare people into settling, or get defaults where they could. There's no way they could have taken my case to trial with any reasonable expectation of prevailing.
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