r/itcouldhappenhere • u/Notdennisthepeasant • 7d ago
It Is Happening Here No just Repo
Has anyone else heard about debt collectors going into homes to take things of value to sell?
I'm scared that the next step is debtors prison to work off our debts.
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u/2planetvibes 7d ago edited 7d ago
IANAL. In the US, this doesn't happen unless someone else already owns it, outside of a very few specific cases.
If you lease your couch and dishwasher from rent-a-center, they can absolutely repossess ("repo") those items. Similarly if you don't pay your car note they can repo your car.
If there's a court judgement against you, ie child support, they can't just take your old beaten up couch to help recoup that amount. But they can try to garnish your wages and they can try to auction items of appreciable value. So like imo it would be hard to justify taking your TV but if you have a couple vintage Rolexes lying around they could seize and auction those.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong here. But as I understand it no one can waltz into your house and just start taking random shit.
Edit: if you're ever in this situation your shit will get appraised too. so like maybe you have a $200 violin, they won't be interested in that. but if you have a stradivarius? they'd like to know
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
https://upsolve.org/learn/personal-property-seized-after-judgment/
Looks like they can take most things, but likely you said, they won't bother if it isn't worth their time.
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u/Citrakayah 7d ago
Exemptions apply to both personal and real property. The homestead exemption protects real property that’s used as a primary residence. That means a judgment creditor can’t seize or sell your home if it’s fully covered by the homestead exemption available to you.
With respect to personal property, most states have specific exemptions for specific types of property. Most protect typical household goods, health aids, clothing, and a motor vehicle up to a certain value. Federal law protects Social Security and disability benefits from debt collectors (with or without a judgment).
Your own link doesn't say "they can take most things."
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
Exemptions rarely make up a majority. It's an implication of the word.
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u/Citrakayah 7d ago
The implication here is that these are exempt from seizure, not that most of your stuff could be seized. Why don't you look into state laws about what exemptions are before you say that most things could be seized by creditors?
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
From my state it gives a category of things that you can keep up to $7,500 worth including furniture, appliances, and other household goods. If your washer and dryer and couches combined add up to $7500 then say goodbye to all of your plates. Your car can be seized if it's worth more than $10,000. If you own a business any equipment for it beyond a combined value of $10,000 can be seized.
So yeah, your couches are probably safe, but if you don't have a job that specifically uses your personal computer it's not protected, nor is your guitar, nor your snowboard, etc. Your table, your plates and your spatulas are probably fine, but I would double check what your car sells for, just in case. Also you get to pick one gun worth less than $1,500 that is exempt, so if you have two guns, be ready to give one over.
The law will provide a guide that the sheriff's department will use as they go through your house and take out everything except for basics under a certain value. All of those things will then be sold to go towards covering your debt. While they are at it anything they see that they feel they have reason to suspect could have been involved in a crime can be civil forfeit. The corporations can sick the cops on your house. I don't actually and very much so theoretically this law wouldn't hurt me very bad, but my adult roommates who would suddenly have their house searched without warrant by the police would probably feel pretty upset.
But that is my state. I don't know where you live, and if you are interested you should definitely look it up.
Why are you okay with this? If it feels like you're defending this law.
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u/Citrakayah 6d ago
I'm not fine with it, I'm just a pedant and don't like when people leap to assumptions about things and spread that misimpression. Among other things, it makes you look sloppy to anyone who wasn't already agreeing with you.
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 6d ago
It does seem a little pedantic, though not terrible, and I can see where you are coming from. I just don't think I've misrepresented the problem. I think that you've looked at it from a position of significant privilege to assume it's not a problem. If debt collectors sent cops into many houses it would lead to a lot of folks going to prison for things in their possession that the police no longer needed a warrant to see. Particularly in multi adult households this is a worry. A lot of folks who are building gun clubs for their own self defense would be disarmed.
If it weren't for civil forfeiture a lot of this would not be as big of a deal, but when you combine the two powers it can wreck things.
I'm also speaking from a place of experience, not with debt collectors, but with the harm that a police raid can do, even if it's later found to have been unjustified. Our local harm reduction program is just gone now. It was completely destroyed by a warrant gotten under false pretenses, because when everybody who worked there had their own places raided it destroyed too many lives, and the project didn't survive.
This is a door into your life that can be opened by capitalists, without any criminality. That is significant, and the fact that you don't see it suggests that you've had things pretty good
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u/MeatTornadoLove 7d ago
You can also have assets seized through both criminal and civil asset forfeiture- basically if the suspicion is that the assets were paid for or part of a crime (and cops can just assume this about anyone at any time without consequence) then you can have your items seized and then must go down to the court to explain what was taken and why it is not connected to crime.
So to make that process onerous would be the simplest way for cops to take your shit completely legally.
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u/DoctorBimbology 7d ago
I doubt this would work in America like it does in the UK. Having debtors just walk into your place to basically ransack it would just end up with a lot of dead repo men. Repo men already get shot to death constantly trying to take cars
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
I don't think Americans are as hard as they pretend. More likely they cry while their guns get repoed, because technically it isn't the government taking their guns so it's okay . . .
Also
https://upsolve.org/learn/personal-property-seized-after-judgment/
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u/mstarrbrannigan Be an accomplice, not an ally 7d ago
Repo men taking your shit?! The Sims predicted the future?!?
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u/Shakespearacles 7d ago
0% chance that flies in the states. Repo guys will just pocket your shit and fudge receipts, if give any at all. Arthur Morgan can’t just come in and beat your ass and take your jewelry, and China and tools. They’d get capped for it and the cops, judge and jury would laugh the prosecutors back into their hole.
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
It looks like there are exemptions but this seems to mean they can.
https://upsolve.org/learn/personal-property-seized-after-judgment/
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u/Shakespearacles 7d ago
Looks to me the sheriffs are supposed do it instead of regular repo men, meaning they’d probably have to a warrant for specific property in question instead of ransacking
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
Cops ransack, in my experience, but also what makes you think they have a list of your belongings? Registered things like cars sure, but what else? A creditor might have receipts, if it's a credit card you used to buy a fridge or computer, but if it is a car you crashed?
You might be right, but I am not seeing any evidence that suggests you are.
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u/BisexualCaveman 7d ago
When I was a kid I had a friend with a lawyer mom.
He had all kinds of cool electronic stuff around the house that apparently she'd had the sheriff seize from non-paying clients.
Dunno if this story from a particular southern state in the 80s-90s is relevant today.
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 7d ago
I had a friend of the lawyer dad who had a Mercedes diesel and a bunch of other toys that they got the same way
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u/BisexualCaveman 7d ago
I had an old Mercedes diesel with a manual transmission.
Damned thing had a weird passenger car version of a Jake brake and was a damned hoot to drive.
Hope your friend enjoyed theirs. Neat cars even without a stick, although once the big repairs show up, don't keep fixing them ...
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u/Terrible_Yak_4890 6d ago
That sounds awfully dangerous.
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u/Notdennisthepeasant 6d ago
The fact that capitalists can send police into your house, and when there the police have the power to take things they think might have been involved in a crime, or generally just execute a search of all your belongings, yes, sketchy at best
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u/Ztunyknum 6d ago
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act should have criminalized this behavior. I spent weeks training on the FDCPA when I worked for the bank. Collectors can't do things like that anymore, not without some pretty serious consequences.
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u/lordtema 7d ago
I dont think they can in the US, but in the UK they absolutely can, there is even a TV show about it.