Formal Answer To Notice to Vacate

Formal Answer To Notice to Vacate 10-6-08

To: Danny Leon Duvall & Dana Duvall
c/o River Valley Furniture Store
2609 East Parkway,
Russellville, AR 72801

From: H. C. & Ellen Benson
Delete St.
Delete City, AR

Re: Eviction Order

Please be advised that this eviction order does not reflect the true facts.
Please be advised that there is no merit or foundation in any of the
causes you have alleged therein. The order is disputed in its entirety.

If this matter is not put to rest without court intervention, we will list
the various injuries we have suffered in our dealings with you, and will
countersue for damages.

This is not the time to list them all, or to list the serious losses we have
sustained due to your unscrupulous, negligent and willful actions, but
you may rest assured that we will comprehensively list them for the
court and for the public.

Most particularly, we are not tenants and never were. We are buyers.
We are not in breach of contract. Therefore, if you were successful in
evicting us and seizing our real and personal property we would take
vigorous legal action against you for our injuries.

This was a stealth action on your part, with no warning. No demand for
moneys alleged to be due has been presented. Not in writing. Not verbally.
There have been many, many harassment's made against us over these
eight years, in an attempt to get us to relinquish our home. I will list them
comprehensively during any legal action that you bring against us, in a
counter suit against you.

Although you have received several verbal requests over these eight years,
to inform the Tax Assessor of the purchase of this home on two acres of
land, you have, to date failed to do so. I can think of several motivations
for your ongoing delay in the proper recording of this sale. Reasons
resulting in profit to you and substantial loss to us.

Only the seller could do this. Therefore we, the buyers, are entirely
blameless. The assessor's office has informed us that there is no
delinquency in the tax liability on this property. I call upon you once
again, this time formally and in writing, to correct this wrongful and
injurious failure to inform the Tax Assessor of our purchase agreement
and get us properly listed as buyers.

If you do this, the Assessor will be able to determine the actual tax liability
due for the two acres and the dwelling. Until you do this, no correct and
accurate figure can be generated. Certainly you cannot believe that we
were responsible fir the taxes on the entire tract, of which this parcel is
only a part.

To sum up: You have never made any demand with any dollar amount
to us. Never. In over eight years. Our tax liability commences on the
date the Tax Assessor generates the proper precise amount due from
us for our proportion of the larger tract. And a debt cannot be due
before the debt has been properly computed and an actual bill has
been presented. You do not even know what figure you claim is due.
These are essential elements of a debt.

We did not empower or otherwise authorize any party to pay our taxes
without our knowledge or consent, and therefore cannot be held
responsible for any such donations made without our being made
aware of it.

Rest assured that we will pay all taxes on our two acre parcel with
dwelling, at such time as we receive a proper and correct bill from
the Tax Assessor showing precise figures for that parcel only, not the
larger tract that the parcel is on.

The other minor things you allege in your eviction papers are equally
without merit, and certainly don't constitute a cause for elderly
people to be put out on the street and their home wrongfully
stolen from them.

H. C. Benson

Okay, a little background for the blog reader. I bought this place over eight years ago on a private contract from a merchant family, though the calls I made to check on their honesty and integrity came back with -- extremely diversified and contrasting results. You might ask yourself why I would do business with such people. The reason of course is I needed a place to live, and I had the opportunity to buy these two acres with dwelling cheaper than rent, and the sellers were willing to also carry three years of paper on the down payment as well.

It seems clear to me that they figured that one kind of emergency or another was very likely to put me under and that they would reap great reward for the sale by regaining possession of the property. I had originally been led to expect that they would go down and show the sale at the tax assessors office. That did not happen. Not the first year, nor the fifth year, not even now, ober eight years into the contract. It has been a matter of concern to me because I know that they have been borrowing on the much larger tract of land that this property is on. I can't render a legal opinion as to whether this is actual fraud against the bank making them the loans, since they still had the property in their name during this entire time, but certainly it was unscrupulous and improper from an ethical standpoint.

Although the sale was on a private contract, and did not go through escrow, it was still a valid contractual sale. We have never been in default on our payments.

On the first day of this month a Sheriff deputy cane to our home to present us with a notice to vacate in 10 days for nonpayment of the property taxes. Now you have already seen my response in writing. But how else would you handle this? Of course the crux of it all is that even having paid a down payment and over eight years of monthly payments, if the seller went belly up after taking out loans on the property, no matter how fraudulently the Seller had behaved, the bank would have first claim, and I would have little effective recourse. So the question I would put to you is, how would you proceed? You have already seen my written response, but what else should I be doing?

I should also say that the seller alleges that I have not paid the property taxes, which I was obligated to pay by contract. The seller not having informed the assessor of the purchase, and having clandestinely paid the taxes without our knowledge authority or consent, was now claiming that this money was due them and was the basis of our eviction. No court action has been initiated in any court. Once again, what would you be doing if you were me, specifically to reduce the risks that I could wind up losing this property later? And some of you might want to speculate as to how I stopped the eviction action. Another hint: I have not retained an attorney I checked with one who, when asked the broad range of possible costs for legal fees, came up with $1,500 to $15,000. What do you think? Is it worthwhile to hire one crook to protect you from another crook?