Civil procedure is very important as I keep telling my staff.
Take for instance the example of the woman who decides not to pay her common charges for her apartment. One month after living rent free, she recieves a letter from the Board of Directors for her Co-op. One month after that they pull together the file for review. A month after that they send it to the attorney. The attorney sends a letter and one month later follows it up a complaint. Service is done by a marshal within a week or so. The return date (date six days after the date upon which the complaint must be returned to court) is set one month out. One day after the return date, the attorney files a Motion for Default for failure to Appear. This means the Defendant has not filed an Appearance . One month later, the Attorney files a Default for Failure to Plead. This means the Defendant has never filed any proper paperwork like an Answer. Two weeks to one month later these Motions are granted by the Court. Two weeks to one month after that the Defendant hires her own attorney to delay the process and file an Appearance. Now the Default for Failure to Appear is opened. The Defendant can now file a Motion to Dismiss or Request to Revise or any number of dilatory tactical Motions causing the case to last months and months longer. Eventually, the Defendant's attorney runs out of options short of litigating the matter and actually has to do some real work.
So he files a bankruptcy, Chapter 13 to be exact, so as to force a payment plan. Of course, his client never makes one payment. The Co-op attorney therefore files an Appearance in Bankruptcy Court followed by a Motion for Relief from The Automatic Stay!!!! AUGGUH! Do you see how this gets frustrating!? Wait... it gets worse. The Defendants falls out of Chapter 13 before the Judge can hand down a decision on the Relief. They convert to a Chapter 7. Again the Plaintiff's Attorney files the same motion to be heard again. After multiple corrections, filing fees, meetings with the Court, several months passing, it is heard and granted.
Now almost a year has passed and the lawyers begin battling with stupid Motions in Civil Court again! No Answer has been filed. The Motion for Default to Appear has obviously been denied now. The Plaintiff's Attorney's Staff has not filed a Motion for Default for Failure to Plead because of all the other complications. He does however file a Motion for Strict Foreclosure. Months are passing while they wait for it to get on the calendar to be argued. It finally gets on the calendar, there are no Objections, and the day of argument, the Plaintiff Attorney in his review of the file realizes there is no Judgment of Default so he can not go forward! UGH! They mark off the argument. They file there Motion for Default and now they are waiting again. Waiting..... waiting.... waiting...
The moral of this inconsequential and boring diatribe is that if you are a client trying to foreclose on somebody, please realize, these things take plenty of time even without active fighting in court. Procedure takes time. If you are client trying to save your home, please realize this is something we do and have been doing for some clients for several years without their having to make one mortgage payment. And if you are contemplating going to law school or becoming a lawyer, please understand, procedure can rob you of your wits! All this waiting will drive you nuts.
If you are looking for someone to save you or your home, look no further. We are willing to give it a try.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Today we shovel snow, tommorow it may be something darker
On a beautiful snowy day like today, there is nothing I would rather do than sit here and write the second entry in what shall go down through the ages as the most eloquent, thought out, and ingenious bLawg. Just using the term "Blawg" sets my teeth on edge. I must take a shower to wash away the stain of internet grammar and spelling. u kno wut i meen? (Max returns from shower)
In any case, I am proud to say I have my first and even unsolicited blawg follower. Thank you Robert Connolly, one of my oldest and best looking friends. Sorry ladies, he's married.
I have just finished shoveling my neighbors walk, and half of mine, (thank god Osi is stronger than me and finished our driveway!) I have done all the dishes, and am sitting here watching a Humphrey Bogart marathon that I DVRed. All Through The Night is very good. So far it incorporates one of what I consider the three most essential elements for quality cinema: Nazis. The other two elements are 2) Lesbians, and 3)Little People. If you can combine this combination in a movie, you deserve an Oscar. Any one of the three is downright compelling all on its own.
Since this is supposed to be a Legal Blog (Blawg) I will tell you what is troubling me today.
I am thinking about landlord/ tennant law. More and more cases are flooding through my door regarding some slumlord who is violating tennants rights. More often than not, the tennants are unaware they even have rights. A woman called me two days ago to tell me that she had recieved a Notice to Quit and not wanting to overstay her welcome actualy blew town within the three days provided in the document! Have you ever heard such a thing? She had no lawyer to tell her that she could wait for the complaint to be served and that she could stall with an Answer and Special Defenses. In any event, she contacted me because now her landlord has placed a defaulted debt entry on her credit report. She was late one month and now she has a hefty debilitating black mark on her credit. I'm willing to bet the landlord mitigated his damages too and had another tennant assuming that apartment immediatly. I am going to review the lease for the purpose of seeing if there is any possibility of repairing this unfortunate woman's credit and slapping the landlord with Fair Credit Report Act (FCRA) violations.
In another instance of obnoxious landlords some young men were living in a slum infested with vermin, mold and other assorted pests. The landlord was never accessable, there was no hot water, there was a hole in the ceiling/ bathroom floor, and there was no heat. Folks, these are violations of the tennants right to quiet enjoyment and the covenant of habitability. The best part, the landlord has sued the tennants for back rent owed! After further investigation, he does not even have a certificate of occupancy on the premises. We are counterclaiming. This is what I am talking about!
I guess what I am trying to say is, if you have problems with your rental, at least consult with an attorney before doing something silly like moving out or staying. There may be good legal recourse.
I am going to see if Humphrey Bogart beat the murder rap for Joe Reginald. If you are looking to be saved, look no further; we are willing to give it a try.
In any case, I am proud to say I have my first and even unsolicited blawg follower. Thank you Robert Connolly, one of my oldest and best looking friends. Sorry ladies, he's married.
I have just finished shoveling my neighbors walk, and half of mine, (thank god Osi is stronger than me and finished our driveway!) I have done all the dishes, and am sitting here watching a Humphrey Bogart marathon that I DVRed. All Through The Night is very good. So far it incorporates one of what I consider the three most essential elements for quality cinema: Nazis. The other two elements are 2) Lesbians, and 3)Little People. If you can combine this combination in a movie, you deserve an Oscar. Any one of the three is downright compelling all on its own.
Since this is supposed to be a Legal Blog (Blawg) I will tell you what is troubling me today.
I am thinking about landlord/ tennant law. More and more cases are flooding through my door regarding some slumlord who is violating tennants rights. More often than not, the tennants are unaware they even have rights. A woman called me two days ago to tell me that she had recieved a Notice to Quit and not wanting to overstay her welcome actualy blew town within the three days provided in the document! Have you ever heard such a thing? She had no lawyer to tell her that she could wait for the complaint to be served and that she could stall with an Answer and Special Defenses. In any event, she contacted me because now her landlord has placed a defaulted debt entry on her credit report. She was late one month and now she has a hefty debilitating black mark on her credit. I'm willing to bet the landlord mitigated his damages too and had another tennant assuming that apartment immediatly. I am going to review the lease for the purpose of seeing if there is any possibility of repairing this unfortunate woman's credit and slapping the landlord with Fair Credit Report Act (FCRA) violations.
In another instance of obnoxious landlords some young men were living in a slum infested with vermin, mold and other assorted pests. The landlord was never accessable, there was no hot water, there was a hole in the ceiling/ bathroom floor, and there was no heat. Folks, these are violations of the tennants right to quiet enjoyment and the covenant of habitability. The best part, the landlord has sued the tennants for back rent owed! After further investigation, he does not even have a certificate of occupancy on the premises. We are counterclaiming. This is what I am talking about!
I guess what I am trying to say is, if you have problems with your rental, at least consult with an attorney before doing something silly like moving out or staying. There may be good legal recourse.
I am going to see if Humphrey Bogart beat the murder rap for Joe Reginald. If you are looking to be saved, look no further; we are willing to give it a try.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
My First Entry: We are unconventional!
It has occurred to me that in this era of technology, more and more people are publishing their thoughts to carry them across to a wider audience. People often comment that my office and I are unusual as attorneys go. Perhaps this is because you may walk in and find a plumber/ magician making balloon animals for the staff or perhaps it is because various friendly Hip Hop artists may be performing while bankruptcies are being filed. In any case, the point of this blog and all future entries is to chronicle some of the more bizarre and crazy goings ons at Rosenberg and Press, LLC such as the homicidal Birthday Clown who disrupted our foreclosure sale. (details to be provided in a future entry).
Today I am thinking of Consumer Litigation, specifically a little known federal law named the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This law governs and regulates the activities a debt collector is allowed to take. I love telling clients about it. They never understand at first. If the debt collector violates this law, you are entitled to up to $1,000.00 dollars as a penalty plus your attorney fees. Cool stuff! Lets go chase some bottom feeding debt collecting bastards right!? So for a quick review, these collection agencies cannot call before 8AM after 9PM, cannot contact you once notified of your attorney, cannot mischaracterize the debt, their identity, their actions, the original creditor or any other pertinent information, they cannot threaten, intimidate, insult or scream at you. They cannot call you at work if they have been told it could hurt your employment, they must be licensed, they must give your mini Mirandas "This is a contact from a Debt Collector. Any and all information obtained will be used for the purpose of collecting this debt". And so on and so on. There are many more violations, but suffice to say anything unscrupulous or immoral in the collection process is usually a violation. My question is this, when you tell someone you can get them a grand and possibly the release of a debt, why are they too stupid to follow your directions. This is paint by numbers people. All I ask is you keep a diary of dates, times, names, and what was said. ANSWER THE PHONE! You may just start hearing the kaching of a cash register that I do!
So back to my story...
Not all bottom feeders are easy to pursue. Many con-artists are now situated in other countries, often Pakistan, where they thing they are immune to this law. They change their names and refuse to give any information on the debt until you pay half. Its a joke!! So I get on the phone with them, knowing sometimes that they are untraceable ghosts. This is when I vent my frustration from the world on Mike or Adam who are more likely VeeJay and Suresh. "You motherless ^%&$ biscuits! and so on and so on." I get so insulting that they usually hang up on me. I even feel bad about it later, but recently one of them slipped. I now have a name and address. Soon papers will go out. Will we get paid? Maybe. In any event I will be back. Its the weekend and my youngest son has a croup cough I must attend to.
This being my first experience in blog writing I will try to be more entertaining in the future. I encourage all questions, criticism, constructive or otherwise. I will try to add an entry at least once a week. Thanks folks.
Today I am thinking of Consumer Litigation, specifically a little known federal law named the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This law governs and regulates the activities a debt collector is allowed to take. I love telling clients about it. They never understand at first. If the debt collector violates this law, you are entitled to up to $1,000.00 dollars as a penalty plus your attorney fees. Cool stuff! Lets go chase some bottom feeding debt collecting bastards right!? So for a quick review, these collection agencies cannot call before 8AM after 9PM, cannot contact you once notified of your attorney, cannot mischaracterize the debt, their identity, their actions, the original creditor or any other pertinent information, they cannot threaten, intimidate, insult or scream at you. They cannot call you at work if they have been told it could hurt your employment, they must be licensed, they must give your mini Mirandas "This is a contact from a Debt Collector. Any and all information obtained will be used for the purpose of collecting this debt". And so on and so on. There are many more violations, but suffice to say anything unscrupulous or immoral in the collection process is usually a violation. My question is this, when you tell someone you can get them a grand and possibly the release of a debt, why are they too stupid to follow your directions. This is paint by numbers people. All I ask is you keep a diary of dates, times, names, and what was said. ANSWER THE PHONE! You may just start hearing the kaching of a cash register that I do!
So back to my story...
Not all bottom feeders are easy to pursue. Many con-artists are now situated in other countries, often Pakistan, where they thing they are immune to this law. They change their names and refuse to give any information on the debt until you pay half. Its a joke!! So I get on the phone with them, knowing sometimes that they are untraceable ghosts. This is when I vent my frustration from the world on Mike or Adam who are more likely VeeJay and Suresh. "You motherless ^%&$ biscuits! and so on and so on." I get so insulting that they usually hang up on me. I even feel bad about it later, but recently one of them slipped. I now have a name and address. Soon papers will go out. Will we get paid? Maybe. In any event I will be back. Its the weekend and my youngest son has a croup cough I must attend to.
This being my first experience in blog writing I will try to be more entertaining in the future. I encourage all questions, criticism, constructive or otherwise. I will try to add an entry at least once a week. Thanks folks.
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