Chaos at the Courthouse

Wow! So, on the first Tuesday of July, I went to the Henry County, Georgia, Court House to observe a foreclosure sale. Can you spell chaos?


Don't know how it is in other states, but here in Georgia, there was no organization to the sale. I got there early, not knowing what to expect.

Our court house is on a quaint square with roads leading north, south, east and west out of the square. Traffic is always heavy - really doesn't matter what time of the day you go through. It was probably 95 degrees when it started. I got there at 9:00 when it was only 80 degrees in the shade. But at 10:00, the sun had shifted and the steps were in the full sun. A crowd had started to gather at about 9:40. Soon, some people started to show up with boxes, briefcases, clipboards, etc. Some of them were dressed rather interestingly. The major law firm was represented by a man - I swear he was in a Hawaiian shirt, fishing had and cargo shorts. But I only caught a glimpse of him before he was swallowed by the crowd. Then there was a lady in a nice dress and I swear five inch, pointy-toed heels - (I didn't wear those when I was 20, let alone now - I'd get a nose bleed from the height if I didn't break an ankle first). Then there was a conservatively dressed, young lawyer with dress pants, long sleeved shirt and no tie - spoke in a monotone.


One gentleman in a polo shirt and jeans asked if someone could witness his call and I and another spectator approached while he read one property foreclosure notice - word by word, single spaced - one solid page. We each signed the document and that was that.

Wished I hadn't done that because while we were "witnessing" this "call", a gentleman representing a major player law firm in our area showed up (he was the one with the hat and the Hawaiian shirt) and read what seemed like an endless list of names, addresses and amounts. By the time I realized what was going on, there was quite a crowd near him and it was hard to hear from where I was standing. They had two different stacks of papers (probably two different banks). They had a procedure, which was a little confusing when it first started. But here's the gist of it. As they read an address, if someone in the crowd was interested in the property, they would set it to one side and if no one was interested it would go in the box.

So, they plowed through the documents and finally came to the end. The property that I was there to hear about was my listing which we had been notified would be foreclosed on that first Tuesday in July and in fact, no one was interested in buying it for $183,000, $8,000 more than I had it listed for and probably the peak of what that neighborhood might bring.

So, at the end of the reading of the defaulting properties, the law firm representative started auctioning the properties that the crowd had been interested in. I assume at the end of the auction, they read the ones that no one was interested in and claimed them for their bank-client. I didn't stay to the end.

But that's not the chaotic part. While all of the above was going on, at least 4 more law firms' representatives were reading/calling their notices. You could barely hear any of them because of the din of the traffic. Not to mention, the discomfort from the heat. And they were not speaking loudly, just in normal voices. You could only hear if they were standing right next to you, like the young, conservatively dressed attorney who happened to be standing next to me and, again, spoke in a monotone.

Surely, there is a better way to handle this! You'd think that the banks and lawyers could devise a system themselves so that more of the properties could be auctioned. You'd think that the clerk of the court would somehow be involved and perhaps have the reading done in alphabetical order by owner, regardless of the bank/law firm. Then each law firm representative would read theirs one at a time as their clients names came up.

You'd think it could be done in a quieter spot. You'd think in the heat of the summer, they could do it earlier. I wonder what the banks would think of the procedure. Surely they are not being properly represented if no one can hear the reading. You'd think that they would insist on a better procedure so that they don't end up with the properties.

The only reason I went was to see if my listing actually got foreclosed. I didn't want to remove the sign/lockbox prematurely. It has happened on many occasions where we were told that a property would be foreclosed and then it wasn't.

I guess as a non-judicial foreclosure state, the chaos comes with the territory. One of our gubernatorial candidates wants to change the foreclosure process in our state. I've been told that if we change from a non-judicial foreclosure state to a judicial foreclosure state, that our interest rates would be higher. I think that would be just fine. Clearly, something needs to be done.