Robin's Ruminations

There has been an elephant in the living room for quite some time that no one has really cared to talk about.  Actually there are several elephants but the one that has come to my attention recently has to do with the posting of foreclosure documents on difficult to locate real property.

Posting a piece of property sounds so incredibly easy.  Just go out to the property and tack the Notice of Default or Notice of Trustee's Sale up any where on it.  Slam, bam, thank you maam, and you're done.

Unless you aren't certain you're on the property.  Then what?

With the explosion in foreclosures during the current economic down turn many process servers are doing a banner business posting notices through out their coverage area.  Most postings are straight forward.  The client supplies an address, the address exists, you go there and post the premises  Now there have always been a few difficult to locate properties thrown into the mix but I'm noticing an increase in their number over the past few months.  And I suspect their numbers will increase over the near future.

I've spent hours reviewing plat maps, road maps, aerial and satellite photos, and Google and Bing maps trying to locate properties which don't have addresses and effectively existed only in the mind of some developer who is in the process of going under financially.  They're usually properties which are heavily forested and often landlocked well away from any road.

Recently I received an assignment to post a parcel in Everett which was bordered on one side by I-5 and otherwise surrounded by acres of alder forest.  The forest floor was impassable due to thick blackberry briars up to 6 feet tall which covered the entire property and the surrounding properties.  My client informed me they had just had an appraisal done so the property shouldn't be a problem to post.  After positively locating the property using the excellent Snohomish County Assessor's mapping system I also checked Google and Bing in order to get a good look at it from above.  Something didn't seem quite right about what the eyes in the sky were showing me.

So I took a drive out to where the property is located to have a look around and, perhaps, accomplish the posting.  Once there I quickly decided the appraiser my client had used didn't know how to read a map.  He had definitely failed to locate the correct property boundaries but had located the properties surrounding the target property.  Without heavy work clothes, a machete, and a couple of hours of hard labor clearing blackberries there was no possible way to access the property.

Returning to my office later that day I began a series of telephone calls with my client.  I explained the situation in great detail, supplied maps and aerial photos, and told them it would take time and effort to get to the property.  They didn't really like that.  After all, their appraiser had reached the property.  In as polite of terms as possible I told them their appraiser was wrong.  I even offered to go out there with the appraiser.  They didn't like that either.

Then the point of this story occurred.  During one telephone conversation the comment was made that "no one is going to be out there checking, couldn't you just step into the woods somewhere and post it?"  OMG I thought to myself.  This was a client for whom I have worked for 30 years.  A good client.  They give me a fair amount of work, they pay their bill on time, and I've always had good relations with them.  The perfect client.

I explained as gently as I could that I don't do that.  I don't post a property if I'm not positive I'm on the property.  Though I didn't say it I wanted to shout "My signature on a proof of service has meaning!"

A couple of days later they withdrew the assignment.  I don't know what they did with it.  Maybe some other process server stepped into the woods and posted it.