OT: Lawyer letter

[wcfan10]

Hi,

I'm renting my cousin's house (at his request), while he is on a company assigned 2-year assignment in California.
The house is in bergen county, NJ.

A few days ago, there was a letter sent from a law firm to my cousin at his house that is rented.


The letterr reads:

RE: renter's name and address

The writer is confirming or correcting location information concerning the occupant/former occupant of your house at the above address.

Enclosed is a self-addressed envelope for you rreply.

Allow me to thank you for your courtesy.


Very truly yours,

XYZ firm

signature

name of signer

1. Is the above address current: Yes___ No___
2. Current or last known home telephone #: ( ) ____ - _________
3. Current or last known employer(s) name and address: ____________________________________


End of letter___________


What I would like to know is:

Can I just ignore it? Or am I under an obligation to provide it? What should I do?

What is the general purpose for this letter? Just to confirm the tenant's address? If so, why don't they contact the renter directly?

thanks,

wcfan10

 

[RU4Real]

Sounds like he owes somebody money.

 

[FastMJ]

set it aside for your cousin or scan it and send it to him as an email attachment so he can decide what to do with it.

 

[RUMBA-JK]

Might contact that cousin - scan the document & email it to him.

It could be any number of things - he might be directly involved - or he might be sort of a secondary player in a situation - witness to an accident - be owed money from a settlement - who knows. He might have a clue.
Have a hunch the if it was something really huge - you would have had somebody on the door step - serving papers - not a letter - (and if it was just a regular letter - not certified - it would seem pretty mild)


Also - You might google the law firm see what kind of cases they handle.

 

[rutgersal]

My guess is that they want to serve him with court papers, but want to confirm the address first.

 

[RU4Real]

Originally posted by rutgersal:
My guess is that they want to serve him with court papers, but want to confirm the address first.

Yeah, that was my thinking too.

OP should tell his cousin to lam it, ASAP.

 

[Knight Shift]

Originally posted by RU4Real:

Originally posted by rutgersal:
My guess is that they want to serve him with court papers, but want to confirm the address first.

Yeah, that was my thinking too.

OP should tell his cousin to lam it, ASAP.

We knew someone who was renting a house for 3-4 years, and the owner lived in town. The owner had not paid the mortgage for quite a while, despite receiving rent payments, and the house was put in foreclosure. The logical assumption in your cousin is paying the mortgage (assuming he has a mortgage) with the rent money. But maybe he is not, or maybe it is something else, like a neighbor wanting to serve him because he raised the level of his property above his neighbors'.

 

[Upstream]

It could be a scam.

Without any explanation from the person sending the letter, I would just ignore it. However, since it was addressed to your cousin, I am not sure why you opened it rather than just forwarding it to your cousin to handle. You might still want to forward it to your cousin, and let him decide what to do with it.

 

[DJ Spanky]

Originally posted by Upstream:

It could be a scam.

Without any explanation from the person sending the letter, I would just ignore it. However, since it was addressed to your cousin, I am not sure why you opened it rather than just forwarding it to your cousin to handle. You might still want to forward it to your cousin, and let him decide what to do with it.

My first thought exactly - sounds very fishy.

 

[wcfan10]

Just to follow-up.
My cousin is paying the mortgage. He wants me to open his mail.
As I collect the rent, and pay the water bills, property taxes etc.address any house needed repairs, etc.

The financial letters(bank statements, brokerage accounts, etc) I send them to him un-opened once a month.

I sent him a scan of the letter. His preference is to ignore it. But he asked me to try to find out .

 

[Knight_Light]

Originally posted by wcfan10:

Just to follow-up.
My cousin is paying the mortgage. He wants me to open his mail.
As I collect the rent, and pay the water bills, property taxes etc.address any house needed repairs, etc.

The financial letters(bank statements, brokerage accounts, etc) I send them to him un-opened once a month.

I sent him a scan of the letter. His preference is to ignore it. But he asked me to try to find out .

I only have to ask is WHY?

It was addressed to him...he owns the property...let HIM find out what its all about, not you.

 

[RUMBA-JK]

Who was the law firm ? are they for real? what is their area of practice ?
unless it is more than regular mail - it smells a bit like a solicitation or a scam

 

[wcfan10]

I googled the law firm and it is legit and they specialize in retail collection.

My cousin wants to know if its his legal obligation to reply or not. His preference is not to respond.

 

[RUMBA-JK]

OK - just to be clear - Let's call your cousin "Mike"

The house is in Bergen County - and (you said he is paying the mortgage) so - it sounds like it is owned by your cousin "Mike" - correct?

How long has "Mike" owned the house? ( sometimes stuff like this can be related to a person who stopped residing there 7-10 years ago - yeah - weird)

This house is a single family house? - so only one unit of occupancy ?


Are you living in the house now? or is somebody else actually renting & living in it (you said you are "renting" the house but you also said you "collect the rent" - are you sort of serving as a property manager for "Mike" and collecting the rent from a third party? or are you living there & are in effect his tenant? )

Was "Mike" the occupant of the house before he left for this 2-year assignment in California? - or was "Mike" renting it to some other person?

When did "Mike" leave? how long has he been gone.

Did the document that you received actually identify "Mike" by name as the person that they are seeking?


- if "Mike" was renting to somebody else (and the law firm is seeking that person) - and they moved on - the law firm is probably trying to track them down and this is just step one of their process - it is a cheap first step - they will move on to more complicated steps (private investigator, registered letters, etc.)

If it is clear that it is a past owner or tenant - or some weasel who just gave the address as a residence - and not "Mike" - that this law firm is trying to find - you don't have to answer the letter - but you could just send back - "not at this residence - address & employer unknown"


If it seems at all like they are really looking for "Mike" by name, it would seem that it would be good to take it seriously - it could be nothing - or it could be something really benign or BS - or it could be debts created via ID theft.

 

[rutgersal]

Originally posted by wcfan10:

I googled the law firm and it is legit and they specialize in retail collection.

My cousin wants to know if its his legal obligation to reply or not. His preference is not to respond.

If he owes any debts and just stopped paying them, he should get in touch with a creditor, and try to work out a settlement. It could be that the creditor is about to sue him.

 

[RUpstream]

This thread is equivalent to a game of telephone.

The further you move away from the original post, the more crazy the responses are...

 

[dollarbill]

Maybe a call to My Cousin Vinnie will help. $$$$

 

[wcfan10]

its a single family home. My cousin lived in it for about 6 years until he got re-assigned to Calif.
A couple is renting it about 8 months.
the mortgage is current.

Thanks all for your helpful comments.

His natural instinct was not to respond and that is his choice as it is his house and issue.

thanks all.

 

[Bones131]

Originally posted by wcfan10:

its a single family home. My cousin lived in it for about 6 years until he got re-assigned to Calif.
A couple is renting it about 8 months.
the mortgage is current.

Thanks all for your helpful comments.

His natural instinct was not to respond and that is his choice as it is his house and issue.

thanks all.

There is no legal obligation for him to respond. It may be about an old debt on which the statute of limitations has expired. Your cousin's fear may he that if he responds, he begins the SOL anew.

At least that's what it sounds like to me.

 

[RUMBA-JK]

pretty much sounds like it has really nothing to do with your cousin - other than that the lawyers are looking for somebody who has previously supplied the rental unit's address as their residence.
The lawyers are hoping that your cousin would provide details for them so they don't have to pay a PI or some other professional to track the individual.
- your cousin has no obligation to supply information about his tenants - and certainly no obligation to respond to an inquiry made via regular US post - mail ....
- furthermore - in today's privacy/confidentiality aware world - I'd be really reluctant to share any info about a tenant - unless presented with a bona-fide legal request.

 

[BeKnighted]

As I understand it, the letter is asking your cousin to confirm the name and address of the current tenant, and it's coming from a law firm that specializes in collecting debt. There are two likely possibilities, one much more likely than the other:

1. The tenant has a debt that hasn't been paid, and the law firm wants to confirm the address to serve the tenant (this is the much more likely situation).

2. Your cousin has an unpaid debt or judgment, and the law firm wants to take some action to try to divert the rent money to pay the debt or judgment.

There's some small possibility it could be something else, but not really much of one.

Either way, I don't see much upside for your cousin to helping out. Also, I don't see any reason to think there's a legal requirement to help - if there were, it wouldn't have come in the form of a letter asking nicely. (Lawyers, as a general rule, don't ask nicely when they have a right to a response - they tell you it's required, and not very subtly.)

 

[RUJohnny99]

Originally posted by wcfan10:

Just to follow-up.
My cousin is paying the mortgage. He wants me to open his mail.
As I collect the rent, and pay the water bills, property taxes etc.address any house needed repairs, etc.

The financial letters(bank statements, brokerage accounts, etc) I send them to him un-opened once a month.

I sent him a scan of the letter. His preference is to ignore it. But he asked me to try to find out .

"Hey, can you ask on that football board you post on if anyone can give you free legal advice?"

 

[motorb54]

Originally posted by RU4Real:

Originally posted by rutgersal:
My guess is that they want to serve him with court papers, but want to confirm the address first.

Yeah, that was my thinking too.

OP should tell his cousin to lam it, ASAP.

The letter asks about the renter, not the cousin/owner.