Trying to wrap my brain around all of this.

I'm having a problem understanding all of Oklahoma Repo laws. Of course, since I'm being sued by Cap one for an auto loan I need to know all of the ramifications so by trying to explain it to the group just might be what it takes to get it all figured out. Plus if I make a blunder in thinking maybe someone will point out my error in thinking. So here goes.

First of all there are several requirements in Oklahoma law dealing with what a creditor must do before, during and after a repo. Each of those things are covered by a separate section of Oklahoma statutes. Those statutes may be found at Title 12 Part 6 § 1-9-607 U.C.C. which is just the start of it. There are several things a creditor must do and some of it in exact order of commission. No wiggle room and apparently the failure to follow the law can carry some pretty stiff penalties.

One of the first requirements of repossession of a vehicle is as follows.
Moreover, repossessing property in which there is no security interest, such as hunting equipment in a car's trunk, is a violation of law and the property must be returned. See Jones v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 565 P.2d 9 (Okla. 1997); Mangrum v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 577 P.2d 1304 (Okla. 1978).
In the present instance there were several rather valuable items in the vehicle. A new Garmin Nuvi GPS unit valued at over $500 just for starters. A new HP laptop costing over $1800. A new DeWalt 36 volt battery operated impact wrench costing over $600 and still in the original black manufacturer's case plus other miscellaneous tools and personal property. It all disappeared with the car and I received no notification of who did the repo or how to recover my personal property whatever. According to the decision of Mangrum V. Ford, they are liable to me for the value of the personal property but not for any punitive damages as was demanded in Mangrum. An interesting point is that in Mangrum the court did not require any proof of cost of the items nor any proof that Mangrum's guns were actually in the vehicle at the time of the repossession. In all, I believe that a claim for the lost property is worth $3,000.

section 9-611 requires that the creditor send an authenticated notice of disposition of the repossessed property. The purpose of the notice of the intended disposition of collateral under old section 9-504 was to enable the debtor to protect its interest in the collateral by refinancing or otherwise paying the debt, or by finding potential purchasers of the collateral, and to be present at the sale in order to bid on the collateral or have others do so in order to prevent the sale of the collateral for less than its true value. First National Bank and Trust Company of Enid v. Holston, 559 P.2d 440 (Okla 1976). The same purpose would apply under new section 9-611. The creditor did not send any such notice. Obviously the law intends that the debtor have the opportunity to attend the sale but the property was apparently sold at a dealer's only sale which would not comply with the requirement that the debtor have the opportunity to buy the vehicle if he chose to do so. So it appears to me that the sale at a dealers only auction would violate that right.

The form the notification must take in consumer transactions is defined at section 9-614 and I did not receive any such notification. Apparently true is that there is no requirement that I receive it but there is a requirement that they send it. So it seems to me that the only way that the creditor could prove that it was sent would be to have sent the notice by certified mail return receipt requested.

Section 9-616 also provides for determination of any surplus or deficiency and that the creditor shall provide an accounting of the alleged deficiency which was not performed even though I demanded it of the plaintiff in the form of a validation letter. There are even more requirements dealing with the sale and accounting of the debt but I'll let that go for now. I think I might have some pretty good arguments here.

 

That is exactly the argument I expect the way the law is written. It says that the only requirement is that the letter must be sent but no requirement that the debtor receive it exists. That much is crystal clear in the law. But the question then remains whether or not they can prove they actually sent it?
It seems to me that since there are a series of letters they are required to send and those letters must follow exact formats and guidelines also specifically spelled out in each section of the Oklahoma U.C.C. codes I think I can at least raise enough suspicion of non-compliance to get the judge to rule that they must prove they sent it as well as what they sent.
I might not have received one or another of the 4 or 5 letters they are required to send. In a sense at least one of those letters is almost a demand for validation. I didn't send a demand for validation to Cap One and if I had known about all this stuff I am just learning about I would have done so but I did send my demand for validation to the plaintiff's attorney.

And now that you mention it I suddenly get the idea that it still might not hurt to send a new demand to the plaintiff through it's attorney. My regular DV letter is very different than anything found on the net because it is so short.
As everybody in these parts knows, a DV letter must be sent within 30 days of it's receipt in order to be fully effective. That's not a requirement in this section of the Oklahoma U.C.C. code so thanks to you I am going to have to re-read that section to see if a letter amounting to a DV but conforming to that section of Oklahoma U.C.C. code would work at this late stage of the game. Then the question becomes one of should such a letter be sent directly to Cap One or to their attorney or to both.
I can well imagine that if I send it to Cap One they will simply tell me to contact their attorney here in OKC and will not comply with the letter's demand. If they did that would that become a separate violation of OK U.C.C.? I seriously doubt it. If I send it to the law firm heaven only knows how they will respond but I suspect that they will claim they don't have to comply at this late stage of the game.

I am going to have to think that one out yet but you will never know how much I value and appreciate your comments here.

 

There is a rather strange thing going on here because Oklahoma don't have any such thing as a set of consumer protection laws such as the Texas Finance Code or the California Rosenthal Act or anything even remotely similar. Oklahoma just says that Oklahoma law mirrors the FDCPA. That's all there is to the Oklahoma version. Also Oklahoma has a mixed bag of law. Oklahoma has never done a complete revision of their laws since 1910 so the courts often have to rely on the Oklahoma version of U.C.C. which is something I've never studied to any great extent.

In most states the U.C.C. only applies to commercial commerce most of the time. Also the U.C.C. is not uniform throughout the 50 states as might be imagined from the name. The phrase commercial commerce isn't really appropriate either since the real intent of U.C.C. is to deal with titled property transactions. Things like real estate and vehicles where a real title to the property exists which is why it is so applicable to vehicle repossession cases and of course mortgage foreclosure cases which I also get involved with quite a bit.

On the other hand, I do quite a few mortgage fraud audits and those don't get into U.C.C. much either. Those go into RESPA, TILA and other related laws. When I do a mortgage fraud audit I turn out a booklet that will normally run well over a hundred pages long for each audit.

I'm working with two local situations right now where a local person claiming to be a fraud auditor has already done an audit but the work they turned out is virtually worthless because even though that person also turned out a booklet with more than a 100 pages each about 15 of those pages consisted of the auditor's personal observations which say things like This seems suspicious or That seems highly irregular. Only innuendos and allegations of possible fraud but never anything specific or usable by either an attorney or a pro se in building a defense against the foreclosure.

I've seen a great number of audits performed by various self-styled fraud auditors but I've only seen one from an company in Florida that actually came out and gave specifics of what law was allegedly violated, what that law says, how that mortgage or note was violative and court cases that could be referred to and relied upon. A fraud audit that does not include all that information is nothing but a rip off in and of itself regardless of the price paid for it.

Of course, we don't normally get into any such thing as U.C.C. or mortgage fraud audits here in this forum so we don't learn much about that kind of thing here. On the other hand, I don't know of any other forums that go there either.