The case involved a six-figure judgment obtained in Missouri. We received an alert that the Judgment Debtor’s mother passed away, leaving her Miami property to her three surviving children. After a Probate Court recognized her Will, the Debtor received a 1/3rd ownership share in the property, with his two siblings owning the remaining 2/3rds. They now owned the property as “tenants in common”. As this was not the debtor’s primary residence and therefore not subject to any homestead exemption, we immediately domesticated the judgment into Florida, recording a judgment lien against the debtor’s interest in the property.
This brings us to the “family dispute” that made this case such a fiasco. The debtor, his brother, and his sister could not agree on if the property would be sold. This forced the debtor and his brother to file a “partition” lawsuit against the sister. This lawsuit would force the sale of the property if the parties couldn’t work it out themselves. Once the lawsuit was filed, the debtor’s sister finally relented and they agreed that the property could be listed by a real estate agent and sold, with the proceeds to be divvied up between the three co-owners. An Agreed Judgment was entered in the partition lawsuit, ordering that the property be sold. I remember thinking, “Great, now it’s time to get paid on that judgment lien.”
But it is never that easy. First, we received a call from the title company that the property was under contract to be sold, and they asked for a payoff amount. But then it became clear that the brothers and sisters were no longer in lockstep, and despite the court order that they needed to cooperate with the sale process, the deal began to fall apart. Once this happened, we unleashed our frustration upon the debtor and levied several of his bank accounts without warning him in advance, capturing $25k in cash. This still didn’t compel him to take the necessary actions to get the real estate deal done, but at least it was a start.
We also received notice that a senior lender was foreclosing on the property due to an unpaid mortgage. This was cutting into the equity of the property available to satisfy the judgment, and it would ultimately be a huge problem if the property ended up being sold at a sheriff’s sale instead of for fair market value to a buyer. Despite multiple urgings, the debtor and his siblings simply were not getting this deal done.
To speed up the process and compel the parties to come to their senses, we took the extreme step of going to Miami (in-person) to have the Sheriff begin a levy and sale of the debtor’s real estate. Faced with the prospect of the Sheriff auctioning off his property for pennies on the dollar in 60 days, the debtor decided to call his siblings and work out their differences. Eventually, the same buyer who originally wanted to buy the house came back and said “we’ll do the deal”. The proceeds were dispersed at closing to satisfy the judgment.
