Finding Things
Jul. 29th, 2023 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI am an attorney duly licensed and admitted to practice before the courts of the State of New York. That's as far as my official licensed qualifications go, unless you count my driver's license, or my commission aa a Notary Public, these days a bigger pain in the ass qualification in many ways.
Alongside that, I get to play at many other occupations licensed by the state. Psychologist. Chauffeur. Librarian. Plumber, mostly cleaning up other peoples' shit.
Is there promotion involved? Oh, yeah, yeah. After five years they give me a brush!
Very often, though, it's the job of private detective. Of finding people or places that either cannot, or do not want to, be found.
These are some of their stories.
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Our first case is probably the least interesting of the ones in my tattered casebook, but took up a good chunk of my time this week and more to come.
Earlier this year, I took on the defense of a foreclosure very sweet old gentleman and a troubled section of Rochesters northern reaches. He’s about my sister’s age, retired, getting by in an old house where just adopted two kittens, that remind me a lot of Bronzini and his brother when we first got them not quite two years ago. I never even did ever figure out where he got my name from. He said he heard it from someone on the radio. I don’t advertise, so who knows?
I got a small retainer from him that is long gone, but I’ve kept him in his home and I’ve been trying to get his paperwork restructured so that he can continue to live there. He’s been approved for a loan modification, but there’s a glitch, involving another signer on the documents- an ex who he really doesn’t get along with. Supposedly her son, who lives just a few blocks away from him, has a power of attorney for her, but I have never seen it, and who knows if it’s in the proper form, so I prepared a new one from her to her son and tried to get it to him at his home. Nobody was there, so I left it along with my card. I finally got a working phone number for his mother, and all she told me was to talk to the kid. HIS phone number was answered once and hung up on, the next went to voicemail, which was full, so I sent a text and asked him to call my office number. Which he has not.
I had a Zoom hearing in the case the other day where I reported all of this, and the bank is starting to get frustrated about not getting basic cooperation. They’re getting all the cooperation I can provide out of me and my client, but this just makes it more difficult, dealing with people I don’t represent and have never even met. I got us until the end of August to figure shit out, after which probably the wheels will start turning again and it may not be possible to put the property on Humpty Avenue back together again.
Maybe I should add "ordained minister" to my credentials and start praying I can connect with these people.
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Next we're on to what I am referring to at home as “The Ballad of Evel Knievel.”
I took on the very kind of collection matter I hate having to do, a consumer case by a woman against a former friend and probably former boyfriend, for everything she lent him without any paperwork. Among those loans was leading him tool around on a motorcycle that is titled and insured in her name. She has coverage for my initial fees, which cover getting a judgment against the guy and an order directing him to return the motorcycle. That was a fairly simple process. Getting it back from him, less so.
In this state as in most, county sheriffs still have civil enforcement powers going back to ancient English times. They can garnish wages, evict tenants, and recover property, by force if necessary, after a judgment has been taken. Since this kind of work takes away from their more important crimefighting duties, I have found them to be fairly slow and pretty expensive to get them to do their jobs.
I obtained and then sent the client a quote of what my initial fee, plus the sheriff deposit for expenses, would be, thinking that might dissuade any further activity. Nope, it took a couple of online transfers but there the money was, and the paperwork and deposit on it went a few weeks ago. The client then thought that as soon as I sent the sheriff the funds, they would roll out the SWAT team and have it back to her that night.
Um, no.
She then made the mistake of contacting the sheriff's office directly, since they must’ve included their phone or email in a previous exchange with them I had forwarded. That got me a pretty quick admonition to get her to stop contacting them, and got me to tell her that further contact from me OR her would virtually guarantee that her paperwork would be placed on the bottom of the pile.
Independently, I'd sent sent her motorcycle poacher some paperwork concerning the judgment by certified mail, and that arrived back on my desk unclaimed a few days ago. That did, however, give me an excuse to contact the sheriff myself to advise that the service address might not still be good, and that elicited the following update from them:
The provided address was vacant. We found a new address and actually just attempted to seize the motorcycle today. I was able to serve ... personally but the bike was not on the property. He claims to have gotten in an accident a couple weeks ago and had the bike towed to a Westside Cycle where it was subsequently stolen. I called Westside Cycle and they have no record of him or his bike or any bike being stolen off their property. I called .... to confront him with this information and he was insistent he was telling the truth. He said the accident happened on July 9th and the bike was towed there at 7:30pm. He did not get a police report but he does have the hospital records and tow bill to confirm his story. Westside was closed from July 4th to July 11th which [he] did not know at the time of towing his bike there. That is likely why they don’t have any record of the bike ever being there. I did note the bike was not reported as stolen and he said he just hadn’t gotten around to reporting it yet. At this time we have no further leads on where the bike might be or who may be in possession of it.
When I then asked for either his current address or information about the towing company involved in this transaction, they basically wrote back and said, sorry, we don’t have that, we’re done and we’re sending you your money back. The good news is that the client had kept the bike insured this whole time, so she should be able to now report it stolen and make a claim on her insurance for the loss. That is, if they are just as gullible as the sheriff is about him not reporting the accident or providing a towing receipt. They asked for my contact information, which I am awaiting a call on to see if we can finally put an end to this story....
♫And I don't want to die,
Just want to ride my
Motorrrrrrcyyyyy....
Cull.
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Our final case is trying to find a creditor who didn't want to be found.
A client is chasing a business near here that has liens up its yingyang, including one to a "Merchant Credit Agreement" company. Those solicitations you sometimes get, online or even on faxes still, for quickie five-figure business loans? They're the work of the devil and they can tie up your business and personal assets and deprive you of your day in court.
This one has a filed lien against our mutual debtor in Albany in the name of something called "Small Town Advance," at an address in Chicago. I had the brilliant idea of sending a subpoena and restraint to that company to see if they would stop sending more money to the company under their agreement, or at least tell me where they were depositing that money for the company, Before spending time and money on sending that, though , I looked up the business name and address. This, friends, is their fabulous corporate headquarters in Chicago:
I eventually found what I think is a better address for the creditor, but when I saw that, I felt much the same as the Illinois Nazis did when they found the address for Elwood Blues was 1060 West Addision:
I hated it. But not as much as I hate Illinois Nazis.