Can a bank foreclose on a home of a person who has been kidnapped? Say that an American homeowner is traveling overseas and then he/she is kidnapped by a terrorist organization. Does the American bank which gave that person the home loan have the legal right to immediately start foreclosure proceedings on that home after the first missed mortgage payment, or is there a federal law that prohibits American banks from doing this to a kidnapped person? In other words, would this bank have to wait until the kidnapped person is either freed or declared deceased by the U.S. government before it can begin foreclosure proceedings on the home?
12 USC Ch 38A regards single family mortgage foreclosures and 12 USC Ch 38 regards multifamily mortgage foreclosures, however both law applies to mortgages held by or guaranteed by the federal government; nothing in those laws establishes an exception to the right to foreclose in case of kidnapping or some other special circumstances. There has to be written notice of the judicial proceeding, but it is not required that the owner be physically handed and made aware of that notice. Outside of those cases involving the federal government as the foreclosing party, the details are determined by state law. In Washington, there might be a non-judicial foreclosure under RCW 61.24.031, where you get a Notice of Default. The requirement is that you send the borrower a letter giving the relevant information ("YOU MUST RESPOND..."). You must exercise "due diligence" in providing notice, which is defined in subsection (5), which includes (and is not limited to) sending both first-class and either registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, a letter to the address in the beneficiary's records for sending account statements to the borrower and to the address of the property encumbered by the deed of trust You also have to call 3 times, then another certified letter receipt: there is, again, no condition that says "if you can't find the person, you cannot foreclose". One part of the process is that the borrower can apply for mediation under the Foreclosure Fairness Act, guidelines here. However, this would require that someone be able to act on the borrower's behalf, which may not be the case.
They cannot force a contract on you after the fact. You should leave these numbskulls alone, they are clearly up to something that makes them likely to be sued. I am adding the following: it's not illegal as far as I know to declare anything you want to a person as long as it isn't a threat. &quot;You are now beholden to give me your firstborn makle child.&quot; lol, no.
What you are describing may be the crime of insurance fraud: to avoid that, you would have to admit to the insurance company that you put a "Please steal me" sign in an unlocked car with the keys in the ignition, in a high-crime area. If we remove some of the elements of the scenario and reduce this to "leaving the keys in the ignition", this would probably be be considered contributory negligence, meaning that you failed to act prudently to protect your property. This can reduce the amount that the insurance company has to pay you. At this point, it depends on what state you're in, since sometimes a little bit of negligence (in Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) means that you may get nothing. However, negligence hinges on an assessment of the actions and intentions of a party, and what you describe isn't "neglect", there is the direct intent that the car be stolen. Insurance policies exclude coverage for intentional loss. So the bottom line would be that the person would be out a car, and could be in prison for fraud if they did not reveal what they actually did. One should assume that the thieves took a lulz video of the sign before they stole the car, and posted it on FaceTube where it entered the viral hall of fame and was used against you in a court of law, so fraud is the worst choice. An alternative if you have a car is to donate it to charity, and take a tax write-off.
The mortgage company cannot grant you title. The basic logic of your relationship to the mortgage company is that you borrowed a bunch of money, using the hose as collateral, and you owe them that money so you have to pay. If you don't pay, they can take you to court, and normally they would get the court to make them the owners of the house, which they can then sell to recover their losses. Not paying the debt is not a good idea. You can always ask them to put the payments in escrow, but I doubt they would agree since ultimately you owe them that money. What is supposed to happen is that the title insurance company pays for their mistake, whatever it was. It is possible though that the error was the county's, in which case the news is all bad (ask your attorney about a case I believe in Columbus, around 2010, where the county screwed up the paperwork and the buyer ended up with no recourse – as I recall, the buyer had no title insurance). Ohio law does not require recording title transfers, therefore it is quite possible that the transaction was not properly vetted through attorneys. I'd give the standard admonition &quot;ask your attorney&quot;, but all I can suggest is to try a better attorney.
Since you don't say which country you're in, it's likely that you're interested in United States law. You are probably in the clear here, though you're getting close enough to the edge of breaking the law that I wouldn't be confident about not being prosecuted and/or convicted. The relevant laws in this case appear to be 18 USC 471, 18 USC 472, and perhaps 18 USC 514. All three of them begin "Whoever, with the intent to defraud...". It's questionable whether creating counterfeit money as a burglar decoy counts as defrauding the burglar.
The &quot;original&quot; owner remains the only legal one. Party A goes to jail. You get entitled to recover the money from A (unless you knew that the item was stolen — in which case the money will go to the government and you may go to jail with A).
Theoretically speaking, this is not theft. You are correct in that theft requires specific intent: to permanently deprive someone from the use and enjoyment of one of their lawful possessions. In real life, it is a matter of evidence of course. Saying you were only borrowing can be proven otherwise based on your actions. I should also mention that if you "borrow" something an there were obligations attached to that borroeing (e.g. "you can borrow it but you mustnt use it like this, or you must return it in a week") then failing to abide by those obligations can be sufficient to show intention to deprive. Furthermore "borrowing something" and consuming its entire usefulness for yourself counts as the permanent deprivation of the use of the possession from the owner. E.g. "borrowing" concert tickets and returning them after a concert (see s.6 Theft Act 1968) R v Lloyd, Bhuee &amp; Ali [1985] QB 829 also tells us that the condition of something borrowed once returned may be indicative of whether there was an intention to permanently deprive someone of their rights to property.
It primarily depends on the title that you have to the house: are you &quot;joint tenants with right of survivorship&quot;. This could have happened when you bought the house; it also could have been done after the fact in various ways. In that case, the house is outside of your wife's estate (which, under the circumstances, is divided between children and you). The lender might be confused about the status of the property, but they might be right, so the question is, what is your legal &quot;interest&quot; in the house, that is, does the title document say &quot;tenants in common&quot;? Assuming that the property is not recorded as JTWROS, then there are two matters to attend to. First, the lender may need to be satisfied, somehow, that they aren't taking a risk by refinancing when you aren't really the full owner. The second is clarifying actual ownership. Estates Code 201.0002-.003 govern intestate succession with a surviving spouse, where the dividing question is whether it is a community estate or not, which then implies shares for children. In that case, the children are part-owners, so you need their consent to e.g. sell the house (that is, this is a complication that needs to be fixed). Basically, you have to get a lawyer, and straighten this out.