When we purchased our home 24 years ago, a critical item was filed improperly. After making more than 200 mortgage and insurance payments, the home where we raised our family will soon be taken away from us, leaving us forced to move out or to repurchase our own home at a price we cannot afford.
Why? Because of a piece of paper that was incomplete 24 years ago, and because a judge did not raise a critical legal precedent called Constructive Ownership.
It is incredibly important that all citizens have access to sound legal counsel. It is equally important that judges on the bench take their responsibilities seriously and ensure that their judgments are fair and well-informed.
In short, while my husband was in individual bankruptcy proceedings because of an unfortunate business failure, it was discovered that, although I had been demonstrably making mortgage, insurance and other payments related to our home since 2000, my name was erroneously omitted from the title by the sellers and our attorney 24 years ago. Because of that omission by negligent attorneys, the judge has now ruled that our home is serviceable for the debt—even though I clearly co-own our home and can prove two decades of payments.
It is too late to hold the attorneys accountable for this negligence, therefore, our family is being held severely accountable for their mistake. What pains us the most is that the judge’s ruling that we have no legal claim to our home could have been rendered differently under the precedent of Constructive Ownership, a precedent that the judge previously argued in court back when she was a litigator. Had the judge raised this precedent, we would not be in such severe jeopardy. We understand that the trustee also knew about this precedent, but it was in his client’s best interest not to raise it and to instead let a family be thrown out of their own home and onto the street.
Since last summer we have attempted to reach an agreement with the trustee to save our home. We were met with many roadblocks with unsustainable financial conditions that we could not meet.
Constructive Ownership can be imposed when there is evidence that the actual ownership of property is not accurately reflected in the deed to the property in question. That means that the two decades of mortgage payments, insurance payments and other payments would have demonstrated without a doubt that I am also an owner of the home.
Because of that omission, our lives are about to be uprooted. When I think about the two moments in time that would have vastly changed this trajectory, both hinge on moments where a regular citizen who is not an attorney had to have an attorney’s knowledge. Twenty-four years ago, the attorney made a mistake. Last summer, a judge made an unprecedented decision. We are now packing our belongings and searching for a place we can afford to live, leaving family, friends, our synagogue and our 24-year investment in our home. Had this judge intervened properly, we would still have a home and would not be losing everything.
I don’t want anyone to be in this situation in the future, which is why I am writing this. It is important to be informed, ask questions, and to understand that lawyers and judges and other professionals do make mistakes.
For anyone who would like additional information, or to perhaps learn more about how they can help our family at this time, please email me at [email protected] or visit our gofundme page at https://gofund.me/8d7db051
