Liens - Commercial/Equitable or ?

[huntingross]

My interest has been sparked on this subject, but was raised in the Copyright Trademark thread, so I shall move those posts to here.

Jock has posted a very compelling document on Commercial Liens and the Commercial Affidavit Process.

The document makes it sound very approachable by a lay-man and does not involve the judiciary. It is simply between the lienor and the lienee(s). The judges can not remove it from the lienors property once recorded and seemingly will threaten you with jail unless you "voluntarily" lift it (go figure)...demonstrating they can not do it themselves.

However, when I got to the examples in the Appendix, you require a law degree to understand them and write one.

But it seems to me that all it needs to say is the basics -
1. You owe me money
2. You have been asked alot of times to pay it
3. You still haven't paid it
4. So I'll place this debt on your personal property

I don't see why that requires to have a law degree to say it, or reference to court rulings to prove case history.

This needs to be recorded, my guess would be, if it's against the lienees home, it would be the land registry, if it's against property....well I'm not sure at the moment.

So this is another quest to find out.

[huntingross]

Posts on the subject so far are here -

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=682&start=80#p17985

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=682&start=80#p18014

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=682&start=80#p18038

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=682&start=80#p18041

[huntingross]

My findings so far

Commercial Lien doesn't seem to be on the UK radar.

Liens don't seem to get alot of hits for UK searches.

Definitions go along these lines :

Equitable lien
In common-law countries, equitable liens give rise to unique and difficult issues. An equitable lien is a non-possessory security right conferred by operation of law, which is similar in effect to an equitable charge. It differs from a charge in that it is non-consensual. It is conferred only in very limited circumstances, the most common (and least ambiguous) of which is in relation to the sale of land; an unpaid vendor has an equitable lien over the land for the purchase price, notwithstanding that the purchaser has gone into occupation of the property. It is seen as a counterweight to the equitable rule which confers a beneficial interest in the land on the purchaser once contracts are exchanged for purchase.
It is a matter of conjecture how far equitable liens extend outside of the unpaid vendor's lien. Equitable liens have been held to exist in a number of cases involving choses in action, but not yet in relation to chattels

Equitable charge
A fixed equitable charge confers a right on the secured party to look to (or appropriate) a particular asset in the event of the debtor's default, which is enforceable by either power of sale or appointment of a receiver. It is probably the most common form of security taken over assets. Technically, a charge (or a "mere" charge) cannot include the power to enforce without judicial intervention, as it does not include the transfer of a property proprietary interest in the charged asset.

Chose in action
A chose in action, sometimes called a "chose in suspense", in its more limited meaning denotes the right to enforce by legal proceedings the payment of a debt, to obtain money by way of damages for contract, or to be recompensed for a wrong.

A lien should have content like this :

Be sure to include the following pieces of information in your lien: The name, company name and address (including county) of the property owner against whom your lien is filed; the same information about the delinquent client, if different; the beginning and ending dates of the unpaid service; the due date for payment; and all associated fees including lien filing fees, lien removal fees, payment for your time to apply and remove the lien, late fees and finance charges.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4423172_write-lien.html

[IamallthatIam]

Thia is something I am very interested in at the moment and was just going to point you in the direction of " commerical Liens - A most potent weapon PDF" but I see you have already found that. I am looking to place a lien on Dyfed Powys police and my mortgage company and so I am trying to research all I can and will post up as much as I can as soon as i find stuff relevant to the uk.

So far it seems that the lien must be registered with the coastguard - as per admiralty law which is very interesting.

Whereas common law liens were used to protect your own property from being seized , commercial liens are placed on thier property compelling them to either pay up or act accordingly in order to get you to remove it , as he who places it is the only one with authority to remove it. This is all done without the judical system being involved whcih is exactly what I am looking for as I cannot get the case back into court with regards to my mortgage company

[huntingross]

Agreed Angie, the Lien PDF makes it sound like a walk in the park, being a US document, they seem to have a better access to it...ours as usual is buried or lost.

What I hadn't realised was, mortgages are a lien in themselves.

[Sophia]

Greetings!
haven't had time to read the whole thread - just wondering why hasn't everyone who is fighting alleged cc debt, loans, mortgages putting a lien on the bank's properties ? The judges would really choke and we might finally get a constitutional debate in the public ?.. Is this so simple no one has done it or am I missing something?

Blessings Bright,
Sophia.

[huntingross]

I can't find a Lien I understand enough to use it Sophia....I think one written in plain english should suffice....I don't think you need to reference every damn law in the book including case law....but then I'm not schooled in law....and I still don't know who to record it with....It is very much more simple in america.....you take it to the county clerk....job done (assuming plain english works)....

So some serious research thrown at this problem is likely to crack an ENORMOUS nut.

[IamallthatIam]

As far as i am aware it still needs to be registered with the coastguard, because they were the only ones that could chain a ship back in them there olden days

[huntingross]

I've checked that Angie, it looks doubtful to me....unless its a ship....

[free_spirit]

I've been thinking about this and trying to apply logic. In my limited experience/knowledge of having heard the term
used on occassion in the real world. If there is a Lien on something, in most cases it's property. Put simply it means that
if an asset is sold the Lien must be settled from the proceeds realised beofre the owner gets the realised funds. I was aware
that a mortgage is in fact a Lien. When I bought my first property I could only get a 95% mortgage so my life assurance company gave me
a further 5% so the building society had first Lien and the life company had second Lien or Charge. So say my proprty went up in value over the
next few years. If I decided to sell it and not buy another, upon sale of the property the bank gets paid first from the spoils, the life company
gets paid next and little old me last of all.

I know the question here is what to do with it so lets apply logic.

If you want to place a Lien against someone you'd probably place it on an asset, usually property. So if that property is to be sold or transferred
your Lien would need to come in to play. For that to happen it's existence would need to be apparent in other words it would have to be noticed.
Wouldn't it make sense to send it to the body who registers title of the property and tell them to add the information to the record? We all know that
when you sell or buy property a search is done to see if there's any charges on it by the lawyer and I'd be surprised if this isn't the place he gets his info.

Something else that springs to mind. If you create a lien and have it properly served on someone they then know it exists and by ignoring it and disposing of the
asset which you have the Lien on would it not then be enforcable by the courts?

This is all conjecture so if you want to pullit bapoart that's fine by me. The thing is they try to confuse us with legalese when the solution is usually simple.
We tend to look for complicated answers to these problems which is what they want.

Another thought is do your Lien, lodge a copy with the person and one with the court. The reason I say this I was watching a tv prog recently about asshole debt
collectors and this little shoit was bragging about how he was going to put a cherge against some poor woman's house so that the debt collector "owned" part of the
property. If that scrawny little shit could do it it musn't be that complicated.

Just a thought

James

Scuse typo's I can't be arsed going back over this to check