No Notice Of Sale

[yawanud]

What is the name of your state? Florida


My wife and I had a vehicle repossessed in early Feb of 2006. The creditor made no contact with us after the repossession until April 17, 2007, we received a Explanation of Deficiency ($8497.27) Then we were served a summons dated April 26(9 days leter when the letter said we had 15 days to respond)suing us for $11299.27 with no explanation of the difference. We NEVER received a Notice of Sale. They sold the vehicle for 50% of the fair market value according to both Kelley Blue Book & NADA.
Do we have grounds to fight this?
Shouldn't we have received the Notice of sale & been given the opportunity to buy the vehicle? (we refinanced our house in June of 2006, and could have bought the vehicle had they informed us)
Can they hold the vehicle for 14 months before selling it? What about the depreciation over that time? and storage?
We are flat broke now and can in no way afford an attorney, but don't feel we should just accept what they are doing to us
We only have a few days to respond to the summons, any advice would be appreciated!

[Ozark_Sophist]

The difference would be repossession costs, storage costs, transportation costs, attorney fees, interest, etc.

[FlyingRon]

In FL, you should have gotten notice at the time of repo as to their intentions. Most likely they did give you the notice saying that they were not accepting the car in lieu of the balance and were selling it.

If they auctioned it, yes you should have gotten notice prior. If they sold it privately, they only need to tell you after the fact (which it sounds like they did), but they are expected to do so in a "commercially reasonable manner" (i.e., not way below the market value).

You can counter at the deficiency auction that the car was indeed worth more commercially then they sold it for and the deficiency amount should be reduced by that discrepency.

You're contradicting yourself. You say you could have bought the car and then you say you have no money.