Quitclaim reversal in Washington state. Statue of limitations? Options? Legal recourse? My question involves real estate located in the State of: Washington My home, has been hostilely taken over. It appears after my home was legally purchased and transferred into my name, that a dispute emerged and a default judgement was entered and I lost the house because of a quitclaim reversal in Washington State. What is the statute of limitations? When does tolling begin? I have not been in Washington State for years, but it appears the other party hired an investigator, and filed a news paper notice, et all, and received approval from the assigned judge to have the quitclaim reversed without my presence. However, I was never notified, nor present, even though the person(s) involved knew and know how to contact me, they went an alternate route and it was determined i was "unreachable." Do I have a case for recourse? Thank you in advance.
The law regarding proof of service allows service of summons by publication in case a defendant "is not a resident of the state, but has property therein and the court has jurisdiction of the subject of the action". Plaintiff must file an affidavit saying that he believes that you are not a resident, and he either mailed the summons to you or states that your residence is unknown. Knowing how to contact a person is not exactly the same as knowing their residence, so the statement in the affidavit might be true. There is a one year limit on your right to defend and reopen if not served personally. The statute of limitations tolls after the cause of action has accrued (which I suppose would be defective service of the summons, viz. perjury in the affadavit). For recovery of real property, the time would be ten years. The court rules allow that "At any time in its discretion and upon such terms as it deems just, the court may allow any process or proof of service thereof to be amended, unless it clearly appears that material prejudice would result to the substantial rights of the party against whom the process issued". (This is clearly a matter that your attorney needs to address).
Short Answer The question of whether a real property mortgage is recourse or non-recourse is governed by the law of the jurisdiction where the real property is located. The place where the parties to the agreement reside, or where the documents are signed, is irrelevant. I am not aware of any exceptions to this rule anywhere in the world. In some circumstances, the parties may reach an agreement regarding whether a real property mortgage is recourse or non-recourse if the law of the jurisdiction permits agreements of this type. But, often the parties are not allowed to vary this aspect of their real property mortgage agreement by contract. Choice is law for loans secured by collateral which is property other than real property is pretty much irrelevant in the U.S. This because the law is the same in every U.S. state, territory, or district. Long Answer Background regarding recourse and non-recourse loans To clarify, the terms &quot;recourse&quot; and &quot;non-recourse&quot; are normally used to refer to the remedies available in the event of foreclosure of a loan secured by property that serves as collateral for the loan. When the collateral is real property, the core documents in the transaction are a promissory note that represents a borrower's promise to reply the funds borrowed from any assets available to the borrower that is not exempt from creditor's claims, and a document representing the fact that the collateral may be seized if the promissory note is not paid as agreed, and that the creditor's interest in that collateral has priority over all third parties seeking to collect their debts out of that property which cannot be erased by transferring the property to someone else. This document is sometimes called a mortgage, and a substantially equivalent document used mostly in the Western U.S. is called a deed of trust. I will call this document a mortgage for simplicity, whatever its true name in your locality. In the case of a recourse mortgage, if the borrower defaults, the lender can foreclose on the mortgage, which results in a foreclosure sale at which the lender can bid all or part of the debt secured by the collateral together with any additional cash desired, and their parties may make cash bids. Ignoring for the moment the complications involved when there are multiple mortgages and liens with different priorities encumbering the real property, the person who makes the highest bid at the foreclosure sale is given ownership of the real property in exchange for paying the price bid at the foreclosure sale either in cash (in the case of a third-party bid) or in the from of a reduction in the debt owed, in the case of a lender bidding the debt owed against the property. If the mortgage is a recourse mortgage, then if the lender bids less than the full amount of the debt owed on the promissory note and is the highest bidder at the foreclosure sale, then the debt owed on the promissory note is reduced by the amount of the bid made by the lender and the remainder of the balance owing on the promissory note is a personal debt owed by the borrower to the lender called a deficiency judgment. For example, suppose that you buy a house for $1,000,000 with a $200,000 down payment and an $800,0000 recourse mortgage loan. Some time later, the balance owed on the mortgage loan from regular monthly principal and interest payments is $775,000. But, due to a collapse in the real estate market in the real estate market where your house is located, your house, which had a fair market value of $1,000,000 when you bought it, now has a fair market value of $725,000. You lose you job due to the same economic downturn that has caused the market value of your house to decline and are unable to make mortgage payments. The lender forecloses on your house and bids $725,000 at the foreclosure sale, even though you still owe $775,000 on the promissory note. After the foreclosure sale is completely, the lender owns your house, and you still owe the lender a deficiency judgment of $50,000. The lender may now collect the $50,000 deficiency judgment in much the ame way that the lender would collect a judgment entered by a court on an unpaid credit card bill for $50,000. The lender can garnish your wages (once you get some), can seize your bank accounts, and can seize other property which you own which is not protected by a statutory exemption from creditors. In a recourse mortgage the economic risk of declining property values that wipe out the down payment equity is born by the borrower. In contrast, if you had a non-recourse mortgage, the lender's sole remedy would be to seize the collateral and the lenders would not be able to obtain a deficiency judgment no matter how little your house was worth. Operationally, this means that the lender is required to bid the full amount of the debt owed by the borrower to the lender at the foreclosure sale, even if the property is worth much less than the amount of the debt owed. In the case of a non-recourse mortgage the economic risk of declining property values that wipe out the down payment equity is born by the lender. Choice of Law For Real Property The place where the documents are signed and the domiciles or place of organization of the parties to the agreement are irrelevant to the question of whether a real property mortgage is recourse or non-recourse. In the U.S. (and everywhere else that I am aware of), the law governing security interests in real property, such as mortgages and deeds of trust and liens is the law of the place where the real property is located. So, if you take out a mortgage on property in a non-recourse state, the mortgage will be a non-recourse mortgage. Usually, in a non-recourse state, it is not possible for a lender and a borrower to mutually agree to make the mortgage a recourse mortgage when the default rule is that mortgages are non-recourse mortgages. In contrast, if you take out a mortgage on property in a recourse state, the mortgage will be a recourse mortgage, unless the borrower and lender expressly waive the right of the lender to obtain a deficiency judgment in a foreclosure within the mortgage document. Choice of Law For Other Property The law governing security interests in property other than real property in the U.S. is usually the Uniform Commercial Code which contains choice of law rules. While, in theory, different rules that states could adopt regarding whether security interests in property other than real property are recourse or non-recourse, in practice, every U.S. state has adopted the Uniform Commercial Code as a matter of state or territorial or district law, and at the level of generality of whether a security interest (which is the legal name for a mortgage with collateral other than real property under the Uniform Commercial Code) is recourse or non-recourse, the law is uniform throughout the United States, although there might be slight technical differences between the laws of different states or other jurisdictions within the U.S. based upon the version of the Uniform Commercial Code that is on the books or the decision of state legislators to deviate from the uniform statute's language. The Uniform Commercial Code of each state contains choice of law rules determine which state's version of the Uniform Commercial Code applies to a case. And, the choice of law rules of the Uniform Commercial Code in the state where a lawsuit pertaining to the personal property security interest is what a court in that state applies to resolve the choice of law question. These rules are generally consistent with each other. Footnote on Macroeconomic Implications Of Recourse v. Nonrecourse Mortgages The incentives of lenders and borrowers when entering into mortgage loan arrangements is different in recourse and nonrecourse mortgages, particularly, when the decision to give a borrower a loan is made by a third-party mortgage broker subject to bureaucratic conditions, or by a low level bank employee who acts in the same way, rather than by someone with an economic stake the financial well being of the lender. When mortgage loans are non-recourse, down payments are small, and housing prices are rising, and may be entering a real estate bubble, a borrower is in a &quot;heads I win, tails you lose&quot; situation. If real property values collapse, the borrow loses only his small down payment. If real property values go up, the borrower can sell the property and pocket all of the profits (in some circumstances the profits are even tax free). The borrower has little incentive to worry about the possibility that the fair market value of the real estate could collapse at some point. But, if the decision to allow the borrower to borrow is made by an employee or broker with nothing to lose if a loan is authorized when it shouldn't have been because the risk that the property values will collapse due to a real estate bubble are too great, the mortgage broker has an incentive to be lax in underwriting the loan to make sure that the borrower can really make the payments and that a foreclosure of the loan will realize enough value to pay of the loan if a real estate price bubble collapses. And, since the bank can get its money back and more by foreclosing if the borrower doesn't make payments while prices are going up, there isn't much of an incentive to make sure that the evidence of the borrower's ability to make the payments on the mortgage is accurate. The incentive of the broker or employee is usually to get as many mortgages processed as possible, even if that means overlooking problems with paperwork in a loan application, or using an appraiser who will say that the property being financed is worth what is necessary to get the loan approved, even if you know that the appraiser is cutting corners or just making up inaccurate values to get what the broker wants done. These events can conspire to make a real estate mortgage very bad and to expose the entire community of lenders who make loans in a non-recourse state to catastrophic losses in the event that a real estate bubble collapses. In contrast, this is much less likely to happen in a recourse mortgage state, where the risk of a downside loss deficiency judgment discourages borrowers from trying to finance the purchase of a house that could easily lose more value than the down payment if it was apparent that a real estate bubble was developing. So borrowers would self-police. The reason for this extended footnote and story is that this was one of the root causes of the financial crisis. A handful of states with big real estate markets and non-recourse mortgages (California, Florida and Texas mostly) started to experience real estate bubbles and mortgage lenders, because they had bad incentives in their mortgage origination systems didn't do enough to prevent themselves from financing the purchases of overprices houses. Eventually, the real estate bubble collapsed, lots of borrowers with overpriced houses and little money down defaulted on very large mortgage loans, and the lenders took huge losses on their real estate mortgage portfolios which were supposed to be ultra-low risk but weren't because the people evaluating the real estate mortgage investments overlooked or willfully ignored the risks. This, in turn, resulted in losses so great at the financial institution level that almost every major investment bank in the country and almost every subprime lender in the country went out of business or went bankrupt, and the collapse of this part of the financial industry, in turn, wrecked havoc on every firm in the economy that relied of these financial institutions as a source of investment or a source of financing for their unrelated businesses. The result was the worst recession since the Great Depression.
What is the process for having the plea withdrawn? Is it even possible at this point? Maybe, but YOU are not going to be able to do this on a pro se basis. It is clear from the way you word the questions you are still extremely emotionally invested in the whole scenario and want to make sure you get your pound of flesh at every turn. That is not going to work in this case. The first thing you need to accept is that for the purposes of the plea withdrawl the judge does not care to hear about how the lawyer tricked you. If you go in on your own pleading that your lawyer did you dirty, the judge is just going to deny your request in the best case. You will need a lawyer to prepare and argue the motion to withdraw your plea. Get a good lawyer they are worth their costs. Focus on the main goal of resolving your issue of the Criminal Trespass. How the police treated you or your Tenant took advantage of you does not excuse criminal behavior. So if the plea does get withdrawn focus on winning the criminal case. After the criminal issues are resolved then you can deal with the other issues.
He is mistaken. The statute of limitations for suing someone for a car accident, and for enforcing an oral promise, are both far longer than 3-4 months. You could get an estimate of the damages, report it to his insurance company, and, if the insurance company does not cooperate promptly, bring suit in a court of limited jurisdiction or a small claims court. Even if you don't retain a lawyer to take on the case for you fully, if you need to sue, you should hire a lawyer to coach you on the high points of how to represent yourself in this case, particularly with regard to how to fill out the Complaint, how to serve the other driver with process, and what evidence you need to present in what manner a trial.
TL;DR: You may have chances. Consult a German lawyer fast. In German civil cases there is the possibillity of "Reopening of proceedings" (Wiederaufnahme des Verfahrens), §§ 578 ff. ZPO. It can be used in special cases of incorrect proceedings. You have an "Action for retrial of the case" (Restitutionsklage), if "in a testimony or report on which the judgment was based, the witness or experts violated their obligation to tell the truth, such violation being liable to prosecution", § 580 n. 3 ZPO. The lie of the expert witness seems to be prosecutable as "False unsworn testimony" (Uneindliche Falschaussage, § 153 StGB). This crime is under Limitation on prosecution (Verjährung § 78 StGB). Nevertheless it is a reason for reopening. There are short periods for filing such an action, § 586 ZPO. It has to be within one month after knewing of the cause for rescission. If you expired this period without fault, you may get "restoriation of the status quo ante" (Wiedereinsetzung in den vorigen Stand, §§ 233ff. ZPO). But again there is a very short period after you are able to file the action. The wording of § 586 II 2 ZPO excludes reopening after five years. But this clause is reduced in practice, if enforcement is still possible (Braun, in: Münchener Kommentar zur ZPO, 5. Auflage 2016, § 586 Rn. 4). So it does not apply in your case. So you may have an action for retrial of the case, but only if you act now fast. For the details, esp. when the periods begin to run in your case, please consult a German lawyer. You may also have a case against the expert whitness and/or the plaintiff because of fraud in the process (Prozessbetrug) and/or § 839a BGB about the liability of court-appointed experts. As the judgement is about €70k the I assume the process was at a "Landgericht". It is not possible to negotiate there without a lawyer. I don't know if it is a cause for rescission, that the judge didn't gave you a chance to get a new lawyer and proceeded without your lawful representative.
Your rights notwithstanding, the government has the power to do such things under appropriate circumstances. First, you would have to be in violation of some ordinance, for instance in Columbus OH you are a violator if the grass is over 12". This should generate a notice informing you what the issue is and giving a deadline for remedy. If you don't comply by the deadline, they are then empowered to send out guys with tools, and the city will bill you for the work. You could call them and ask what the deal is. They might say "We put the notice on your gate", or "we mailed it to you". From a legal POV, the onus is on them to be sure that you're notified. It would be a good idea to verify that this isn't a scam. [Addendum] Bryan TX kindly provides a video about code enforcement, and gives a link where you can go directly to the section of interest (starting 0:43). Your description of the situation is at variance with what they say is the law (12"; 7 day advance notice whereafter they will correct the violation. They also say no notice is required for second violation within a year; $100 administration fee added to costs; lien will be placed on property if unpaid). I assume that your back yard is publicly visible: they recognize that "when the area observed is plainly visible, from a vantage point where the Code Officer has the right to be there, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy". That could include visible from a neighbor's property if the inspector has permission from the neighbor to be there. Otherwise, there's a simmering 4th Amendment problem (assuming that they didn't get a search warrant).
From the time that the lease expired and you remained with permission, you had a shorter period of obligation and protection. I assume that the lease ended long ago, and you've been living there month to month. Assuming that we can read "two rental periods" as "two whole months" (if there is something else in the lease that indicates this, such as a rent due-date), then we can interpret the notice requirement as saying that you must give notice before the first of the month 2 months before the intended end of tenancy – that is one meaning of the lease. Another meaning is that you can give notice 58 days in advance. The lease has an ambiguity as to what the notice requirement is. Since you did not write the lease, and they did (well, someone, whose obligations they inherited, did), the ambiguity is construed against the party to wrote it. In the present circumstance, because you want to leave soon, you would not be held to the notice requirement that favors the landlord. It's entirely non-obvious why such wording would be used. In 504B.135, the statutes say (a) A tenancy at will may be terminated by either party by giving notice in writing. The time of the notice must be at least as long as the interval between the time rent is due or three months, whichever is less. (b) If a tenant neglects or refuses to pay rent due on a tenancy at will, the landlord may terminate the tenancy by giving the tenant 14 days notice to quit in writing. Once you're past the end of the lease, you are a tenant at will, by the definitions section: "Tenancy at will" means a tenancy in which the tenant holds possession by permission of the landlord but without a fixed ending date. Assuming that you pay rent at the first of the month, then the lesser of a whole calendar month and three months is, obviously, a whole calendar month. The stuff at the end of the statute that you cite – "The notice must be in writing and direct the tenant's attention" – is addressed to the landlord's notice to tenant, where he says "Your tenancy will not auto-renew". This applies to leases of 2 months or longer, not recycled 1 month leases, and requires the landlord to give the tenant appropriate notice (it does not define the tenant's notice requirement).
Check your local law. In Washington, the chapter RCW 63.21 says what you are supposed to do. The first part of the law has apparently been satisfieds: Any person who finds property that is not unlawful to possess, the owner of which is unknown, and who wishes to claim the found property Then you need to get a signed appraisal stating current market value from a qualified person engaged in buying or selling the items, or by a district court judge (I have no idea where district court judges get their qualifications to appraise bricks), then within 7 days, report this to the cief LEO where the stuff was found (and surrender it, if requested). You also have to serve written notice upon that officer stating your to claim the property. The burden now shifts to the government, which must publish notices in a local newspaper at least weakly, for 2 weeks. The notice might be publishable in a no-cost venue, in case the publication cost is greater than the value of the stuff. If the owner appears and establishes ownership, that's the end of the finder's potential interest. If the owner does not show up, the property will be released to the finder once he has paid the government's publishing expenses plus $10, but if the goods are appraised at less than publishing cost, there is no fee. As a finder, you have 30 days after that 60 days to pay required costs, otherwise it goes to the government. There are some exceptions, things not subject to finders-keepers (crab pots, secured vessels, motor vehicles, unclaimed property in the hands of a bailee). If you do not comply with these requirements, you forfeit any right to the property and you are liable to the property owner for the value of the bricks. Under the definition of theft, you have a defense that The property or service was appropriated openly and avowedly under a claim of title made in good faith, even though the claim be untenable since you presumably intend to claim ownership of the bricks under the lost property statute.