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A car ran a stop sign and hit my fiancé's car. She got his information but did not file a police report. She got two estimates, about $1900 of damage. After about a month of run around from the insurance company, apparently his insurance had lapsed. She called the police and they told her that she couldn't file a report because it had been too long. She has his name, address, phone number, and the info from the lapsed policy. I'm not sure what the next step seems to be but the possibilities seem to be: 1) Hire a lawyer - probably not worth it given the low cost of repairs 2) Try to file fraud charges, since he falsely claimed to have insurance 3) Knock on the guys door and request the money 4) File in small claims court Do you guys have any suggestion on the best course of action to go to first? Knocking on his door seems to be high risk/high reward depending on whether he hands over the money or gets violent or chooses an even crazier third option. Small claims court seems like a giant pain in the rear end but maybe that's the best option anyway.
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Oct 6, 2015 14:53
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Alchenar posted:5) Walk away, take the $2k hit as a life lesson, get better insurance coverage. I personally have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage for this very reason. This happened while she was still on her parents policy, which doesn't have that. Is it really not worth filing in small claims court at least? $2K seems like it's enough to be worth the hassle.
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Oct 6, 2015 15:03
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Ashcans posted:Anything you do relies on being able to actually extract the money from this person. You can go to small claims court, win, and get a judgement for the full amount. You will still need to get the money from them. So the first thing you should do is consider whether or not this seems like the kind of person who has two grand you can actually claw from their grasp. My experience is that a person who drives around uninsured is usually not flush with available cash. Is garnishment really that hard once you have a judgment in hand? Even if we only end up recovering half the money after fees, isn't that still better than nothing? I've walked away from $50-100 I could technically file for but $2K in damage is a lot to just let go.
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Oct 6, 2015 15:20
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:It doesn't matter. If the person doesn't have money they don't have money. The police around here often refuse to take reports anyway. It's happened to me twice and insurance claims proceeded as normal because that's just how the local police are here. The real mistake was on her parents for not carrying uninsured motorist coverage and you're right there isn't much that I can do about that. On the other hand, the rear end in a top hat broke the law twice over and lied to her. I have every right to be upset with him and wring every dollar out of him that I can. You're making a pretty big assumption that he is poor and not just a cheapskate who is trying to get out of his legal responsibilities. You don't know that. I guess the first step is to drive by his house and see if he appears to be someone in a middle class neighborhood who has the means to pay. If he's in a nice neighborhood, I'll politely ask for the money, then proceed with the suit if he says no. If it's a nice neighborhood the local busybody will probably be happy to gossip about where he works. If he's obviously poor we'll just keep on driving.
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Oct 6, 2015 16:03
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:Hahaha gently caress. Keep us updated when you confront the guy and get thrown in jail for assault or stalking. That seems like pretty worthless advice. How is what I'm doing any more risky than going to a bar or sports game? I'm not going to hit or threaten anybody. How is it stalking to talk to a person who owes you money and ask for it? Maybe it's better to drive by then send a certified letter? We have to request the money from him before filing a lawsuit.
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Oct 6, 2015 16:20
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Alchenar posted:This is the start of gooninawell.txt Okay, I'm listening to you about talking to him personally. That was probably the biggest thing I was asking for advice on. Asking nicely for things is usually the best option in my experience but it seemed riskier than normal in this case. I'm hearing that fraud charges are a bad idea even though that wasn't addressed directly. I already ruled out a lawyer. My understanding was that small claims court was an obvious last resort if none of my other half-baked ideas made sense. What is the problem with the following plan? 1. 2 minute drive by with no interaction to determine if he has significant assets, bail if poor. 2. Send demand by certified letter - $5 3. File in small claims court - $200 including service and garnishment 4. Have a private investigator find where he works - about $200-$300 5. Collect settlement through garnishment. Worse case, I lose another $200 after losing the lawsuit, maybe $400 if it fails at the garnishment stage. Best case I recover the $2K. Are the odds on the best case really that bad? I thought that this was the whole point of small claims court.
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Oct 6, 2015 16:35
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fordan posted:The "didn't pay his car insurance" is a decent clue suggesting he may not be well off. So he may not have $2k of unprotected assets, and if he even has an above-board job, decent chance he may not make enough that you could even get a garnishment depending on the laws in your state. I still think it's possible that he let it lapse due to laziness or crookedness rather than poverty. Running a stop sign does not indicate attention to detail and I know plenty of people with money who habitually forget to pay bills. If it was laziness we might even get a summary judgment if he is too lazy to show up to court. Google maps is a good idea. I could also check Zillow to see if he's the owner or a renter. That would answer the question of whether he could pay without leaving the house or provoking a confrontation, thanks for that. I'll check that and update.
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Oct 6, 2015 17:01
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NancyPants posted:This thread is not telling you what is possible, it is telling you what is likely. It's also technically possible he'd cough up the money while you're on his doorstep but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that isn't gonna happen. Why come here if not for the experience of people who know what they are doing? I don't think you know our local laws as well as you think. That's from the county website, including the 2 separate fees involved, filing and service. From the business side I've worked garnishments for kited checks before. They really do just charge you $50 and take care of it if you have the paperwork and employer information. I think there are some extra screw you fees on the garnishees side but that's not really my problem. Again, how exactly does filing in small claims court lead to my arrest? Your hyperbole doesn't really add credence to your claims. Horrible Smutbeast posted:Yeaaah it's not just the cost of the initial paperwork to go to small claims court either. There's little fees everywhere, like if you have a witness you have to pay to file that paperwork to call them into court. In the province I live in you also need to cover the cost of their transport and time. Then you need to pay to get copies of everything from when the judgement is done, then pay more to file garnishments. I thought my stuff would cost the initial $100 but it's ballooning into waaay more before even getting to court. Actually the witness is a good point I didn't think about. We may have trouble proving the value of the damage without the estimator being physically present. That makes this a lot more trouble. It's not like we can bring a car into the court room and a paper estimate isn't likely to be useful. That probably doubles the cost of bringing this to court. Which I guess means that it probably isn't worth it. I'm leaning towards sending a letter requesting the money and leaving it at that.
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Oct 6, 2015 17:58
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:It's small claims; hearsay doesn't exist, probably Unfortunately, the Oklahoma bar association seems to disagree: http://www.okbar.org/public/brochures/smallclaimscourt.aspx posted:Q: What is the most significant evidence problem?
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Oct 6, 2015 18:09
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NancyPants posted:Your ridiculous harassing ideas are going to get you arrested. Why are you so knowledgeable about local laws but can't do basic poo poo like make sure you have insurance? I've said several times that I actually have insurance, my fiancé did not have the best insurance. I honestly think the fee schedule for small claims court is more clear than buying insurance in this state. If you buy the required minimums you are woefully uninsured and comprehensive insurance isn't actually comprehensive. You need to separately purchase uninsured motorist. Most people in this state do not have the insurance that they think they have, my future in-laws for example. I've never said I'd harass someone, just ask them for the money they owe. If my neighbors are parked in my driveway or have a barking dog I talk to them rather than call the cops. I was not sure if this was that was a good way to handle this situation, and the general consensus is no that's a bad idea in this case. I don't think that's an unreasonable question. Do you ever talk through problems with other people or do you just run away from them?
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Oct 6, 2015 19:04
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blarzgh posted:"Objection your honor, hearsay! See, I even have a post about it from the Internet." I had been hoping that the fact he lied about being insured would work to our advantage here. We can prove that easily enough. Also the fact that it was a two way stop so she had clear right of way. Maybe that is naïve.
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Oct 6, 2015 19:14
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blarzgh posted:D: "Uhh, your honor I never said I had insurance; I told them I didn't, and that's why I wasn't going to call the cops and report her for the accident." That's why you provided me with your lapsed policy number which is directly associated with you and I had no other way of knowing.
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Oct 6, 2015 19:41
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blarzgh posted:"Uhh, your honor, I've never seen that number before, I don't know what they're talking about. I object to any hearsay about my insurance." That's obvious perjury because he's already presented that number to the state when he renewed his tags. Your defendant is now screwed. The likelihood of him being capable of presenting a defense is what I'm least worried about. If he was that smart I wouldn't have anything but a license plate number right now. Really he's much more likely to not show up at the trial at all and dodge paying than any of the other negative scenarios anyone has presented.
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Oct 6, 2015 21:13
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Well, you better bring someone from the DMV competent to testify to that fact to trial then, too! You guys are seriously overestimating the standard of evidence in small claims court. A letter from the insurance company stating what their records indicate is adequate at such a low level court. This isn't a tv murder trial. Anyway, I followed the actually helpful posters' advice and looked him up on google maps and in the property records. He lives in a shithole apartment so I'm going to drop it. The best I could hope for is to get his license revoked as pay back and if the cops wanted to do that they could have gotten off their lazy asses and done it already.
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Oct 7, 2015 12:48
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joat mon posted:Grand jury by citizen petition? I'm not sure what that is. If you don't pay your judgment and it is a result of a traffic accident the plaintiff can have your drivers license suspended. It's pretty common but if he doesn't have the money, and drove without insurance, he'll just drive without a license too. It's an alternative to garnishments or liens.
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Oct 7, 2015 13:25
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Cool, thanks for coming to the legal questions thread then telling the lawyers they don't know anything about laws. Appreciate you stopping by. Is blarzgh a lawyer? Everyone else was giving pretty helpful advice, if a bit sarcastic. His delivery made his advice seem pretty suspect. It sounds a lot like a sovereign citizen type ranting about the law.
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Oct 7, 2015 15:32
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euphronius posted:He's a traffic lawyer so no he isn't a lawyer. Good catch. I honestly thought the comment about him being a traffic lawyer was sarcastic. Sorry I didn't take his comments about the defendant lying a little more seriously. I believe that I have evidence that proves me right as anyone who has ever talked to a lawyer does. Presenting the case in it's entirety to a local lawyer or judge, with the complete facts available is probably the only thing that would dissuade me of that. You have convinced me that that is not worth the time and money. I really do appreciate the advice about the futility of filing other charges and the pitfalls of garnishment.
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Oct 7, 2015 15:43
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I'm looking into renting out a house in Oklahoma City on airbnb/vrbo and trying to figure out the legal requirements to do so. This is not my residence. They have great guidance for if you are renting out a room in your own residence: https://www.okc.gov/departments/finance/taxes/home-sharing-requirements There is also guidance on legal requirements for operating a hotel which does not seem to apply since it is only one single house: https://www.okc.gov/departments/development-services/business-licensing/business-licenses/hotel-motel-license There doesn't seem to be anything that covers renting one single residence except if the standard Oklahoma state landlord tenant act applies. The landlord tenant act specifically says that it does not apply to transient housing including hotels. I can't find a specific definition of transient housing for Oklahoma but other states seem to indicate that as long as the unit includes a separate kitchen and bathroom and the tenancy is at least 6 nights it is not transient housing. Assuming that I rent it out for no less than 6 nights at a time would I be able to fall under the standard landlord tenant act and avoid rezoning as a hotel? It doesn't seem impossible to get the zoning changed as there are lots of R-3 and R-4 zoned lots within the neighborhood, it's just a lot of added expense and hassle if it's not necessary.
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Sep 26, 2016 17:00
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Mr. Nice! posted:If you're going to use your rental as a hotel you should probably get it registered as a hotel instead of trying to skirt around the edge of laws. You leave yourself open for a lot of liability and may very well end up getting screwed by renters, the state, or both. I'm honestly trying to figure out what set of rules the rental falls under. If I'm actually operating a hotel and try to follow landlord tenant rules I'm subject to a significant fine. If I'm actually operating a single family rental and try to follow the hotel rules I open myself up to legal judgments by not following the landlord tenant act. The section of code for hotels says that it applies to, "any hotel, motel, camp or other place at which is located two or more houses, huts, cabins, individual dwelling units or other forms of shelter." Meanwhile the landlord tenant act says that it doesn't apply to "transient housing." Is one unit transient housing exempt from all rules? Sounds great but I kind of doubt it. blarzgh posted:Are you trying to sublet someone else's house? The right to receive rents from a piece of real estate belongs to the owner of the real estate by default. I own the house.
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Sep 26, 2016 18:07
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blarzgh posted:Ok, I saw "this is not my residence." I saw that which is why I brought up the change of zoning. It abuts on commercial and multi-family properties which are common in the neighborhood. It's entirely possible that I can simply get it rezoned, I just wanted to make sure it's necessary before I go that route. I think a one time request to rezone is actually a lot more practical than a yearly license like that with potential for the requirements to continually change and new neighbors to mount new objections. The zoning application requires a fee of $1800 and about three months processing time, none of which is too bad considering that it would be a permanent solution. Operating as a hotel does have it's own legal advantages since I wouldn't have to deal with eviction proceedings if it's an officially registered hotel. They would just be trespassing if they refused to leave at the end of the rental.
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Sep 26, 2016 18:53
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Mr. Nice! posted:I think whatever you need to do to get properly hotel licensed is what you should do just from a liability and insurance standpoint. That's what I'm going to do. Thanks for the outside perspective that this is a hotel. If the zoning is turned down, I'll just make a bit less money renting it out as a year long lease rental property.
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Sep 26, 2016 19:07
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Discendo Vox posted:loving aribnb, man. The funny thing is that airbnb is actually a completely boring old idea. Short term rentals have been a ubiquitous thing at popular vacation areas for a long time. Every Jersey shore town had local papers with the exact same listings when I was a kid. Most cities are just freaking out because it's trendy now, not because it's actually a new way of renting property.
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Sep 26, 2016 23:35
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:The idea that the city is going to let you refine your house in a residential neighborhood into a hotel is lol. It wouldn't work in a lot of cities but Oklahoma City plays pretty is pretty reasonable in this regard. It's not a pure R1 neighborhood, it's a mix of apartments, houses, and businesses and zoning changes are very common here. If they're willing to redefine a single family house into an 8 unit apartment building, which they've done recently, it's not unreasonable. It's also not an overly risky proposition. The process to request the change is $1800 and the potential income gain is much larger. If you can't afford to risk $1800 to increase the value of the property, then you shouldn't be any kind of landlord.
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Sep 27, 2016 01:47
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nm posted:I've definitely had cases where stores have the CC processor go down, and they don't seem to have a loving clue what to do. Holding people hostage has never actually been a thing though. I had it happen to me in an olive garden. They threatened to call the police so I pulled out my phone and started dialing the police for them. All of a sudden I was free to leave and they would call me later for my credit card information. I could easily see a power tripping restaurant manager getting in a fight like this with a gun fanatic.
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May 30, 2017 01:41
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joat mon posted:The Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage, not treason. Does that still exist as a crime? It seems way more applicable to Trump Jr. than treason.
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Jul 15, 2017 20:39
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Aghama posted:I live in the US and recently traveled to Australia on vacation where I rented a car on several occasions. Last week I received two speeding infractions from Victoria due to speed cameras clocking me at 12 km/h over the limit. Your rental car company will probably just bill it to your credit card with an additional fee.
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Sep 24, 2017 15:40
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There is an area near my work where the speed limit is maximum 35, minimum 30. Then the next sign is maximum 25. I'd always been taught that new speed limits only apply after the sign but obviously I can't instantly go from 30 to 25. It seems like there is no legal way to proceed when the new maximum is lower than the old minimum. I've always assumed that I should start slowing down to 25 since that seems like the most common sense solution but common sense doesn't usually work with legal interpretation. Is slowing down before the sign correct?
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Dec 14, 2017 14:28
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Mr. Nice! posted:Which state? Traffic laws vary in each. On a military base in Oklahoma
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Dec 14, 2017 14:49
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Mr. Nice! posted:
That's kind of the problem. MPs are pretty pedantic about this sort of thing.
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Dec 14, 2017 15:33
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so state laws don't matter since that's federal land. We need a JAG in here for that, but my guess is you're at the mercy at whatever MP pulls you over.
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joat mon posted:Is it on or near a flight line? Close but there's a fence in-between nm posted:Every minimum speed law on earth has a necessity exception. Its why you can't get a speeding ticket for doing under the minimum speed in a traffic jam or in a snow storm. This was kind of what I was thinking but people tend to apply over use necessity defense to apply to themselves.
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Dec 14, 2017 19:00
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Volmarias posted:Was going to post the clearance appeals site too. They're only looking for evidence that you can be blackmailed, a billing fuckup is unlikely to do that especially if you have evidence of savings etc IANAL but this is terrible advice. Some of the people you see in those adjudications have spent months or even years out of work while that process works it's way through the system. Even if you succeed at adjudication, it can absolutely be a career ender because you miss key promotion timelines or duties. Do what you can to keep your credit squeaky clean.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:22
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Lobsterpillar posted:I don't want to defend speed traps but what you've just described there also fits the description of a reduced speed limit outside a school. The difference is that school zone speed limits aren't arbitrary and they are typically signaled by large flashing lights instead of small signs obscured by a bush. The best answer is traffic calming techniques like lane narrowing and chicanes to reduce the natural speed of traffic.
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Dec 17, 2019 22:23
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Outrail posted:I work for a non for profit charity and there's a good reason I have zero interest in getting involved in the legal poo poo. From what I hear the jump from 'basic not for profit' to 'tax exempt charity that can hand out tax deductible donation recipts' is huge and a giant pain in the rear end. My counter experience is that we set up a 501c3, ran it for about 8 years, and subsumed it into a larger 501c3 when the initial purpose no longer existed. No lawyers were involved at any time and it worked out perfectly fine. Articles of incorporation and the tax paperwork weren't very difficult. I suspect it depends on the scale and purpose of your organization. If your worst enemy would agree that you qualify as an exempt organization and you're working with less than 10,000 a year the paperwork isn't bad at all. The IRS website has a step by step walk through so figuring out the corporate structure is the only really hard part.
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Jun 27, 2020 01:44
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Outrail posted:What if everyone involved are idealistic but lazy with no experience in managing anything and constantly take the easiest option with zero foresight ? They should probably just donate to an existing charity. I don't think a lawyer can solve any of those problems other than lack of foresight.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:34
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nm posted:How precise to they get? Like if I move to SF to Oakland or Marin, do I get a salary drop? What about Santa Rosa? Like Sacramento obviously would, but what about Vallejo. And if not Vallejo, what about Fairfield? If you want the details, https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2020/general-schedule/ has them.
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Jun 27, 2020 23:17
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ilysespieces posted:Google "Brooklyn deed scam". That happened to a bunch of homeowners in Brooklyn in the last few years and it's absolutely a clusterfuck trying to figure out what to do and who's responsible for what. Some homeowners are just saying "gently caress it" and walking away if they can manage, it's that complicated (and it sometimes goes hand in hand with foreclosure/preforclosure, so easily preyed upon) As an ignorant buyer I always assumed that it covered fraudulent transfers. If all it covers is mechanic's leans then it's way overpriced. What exactly is a title search if they're not verifying that the guy in the room has valid legal title?
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Jul 22, 2020 02:29
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If you want to seriously talk to someone about having your skull defleshed and preserved, Skullsunlimited.com definitely does it for a price. They could probably advise you on whether it's really feasible with where you live. Also, if you're ever driving through Oklahoma their museum is legitimately cool.
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Nov 4, 2020 22:05
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MadDogMike posted:Put simply, “magic words” is literally what they’re doing, they see the practice of law as some kind of spell craft and they think if they follow these rituals they learned online from some wise sounding law magician, they too will have Power. In another era they’d be laying curses on their neighbors or trying divinations to figure out the weather - hell, wonder how many of them follow things like astrology as is. I kind of suspect for a lot of people any legal activity is just wizardry; God knows a lot of my tax prep clients I’m certain almost literally think I’m a sorcerer who can command the IRS demons to obey and turn paperwork to gold. While I can’t really mock the logic in regards to the IRS, nobody seems to recognize the demons are the ones calling the dance here, I just chant along to them To be fair, that's actually how the world works a lot of the time. Uttering the words "out the door price" when buying a car completely changes the experience. The same with "balance billing" when dealing with health insurance. Last time I was dealing with bank escrow on my mortgage, I had to look up the right magic words to change my insurance because telling them in plain speach wasn't getting any action. Arbitrary industry and legal terms really are just magic words if you're unfamiliar with them.
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Jul 3, 2021 21:34
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It goes beyond terminology though. There are real times in life where people will refuse to respond to a concept described accurately unless you use the specific set of words. Balance billing is very easy to explain using other words but if you don't use those exact words, it doesn't count. That's something well beyond terminology and it's not very hard to see why someone would assume there's another set of words to use in a court.
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Jul 3, 2021 22:30
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Mr. Nice! posted:Hey guys is this binding arbitration agreement binding or could I just ignore it? Do you think they'll let me just ignore the rules and be special or will they fight me tooth and nail to compel arbitration? That sounds like a completely reasonable question if you're not a lawyer. It's not like the world lacks a plethora of unenforceable non-compete or release of liability clauses.
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Sep 29, 2021 21:35
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