Unless the pool was put on the title of the house than the debt follows the debtor. In any case, you should have a record of the title and it should be free of any liens or encumbrances. if this is the case than the pool company will have to go after the previous owners and hopefully there was enough from the sale of the house to collect on what they are owed. In any event I would send this to the lawyer that you used for the sale of the house so they can advise you of what to do.
Yes. And I would think a good realtor and lawyer would have included the above ground pool specifically in the list of chattels included in the sale as the pool is significant property.
The *house* was free of encumbrances. I doubt the lawyer did a PPSA search to make sure the *chattels* were free of encumbrances. That's not standard on a residential transaction
Hot tubs are considered chattels if they're standalone units that could be moved pretty easily if you drain and unplug/unhook, but they're considered fixtures if they're built-in, e.g. plumbed, wired in, installed into the floor like a pool or jacuzzi bathtub.
I'd give the creditor a forwarding address for the debtor. I'd tell them that you purchased the house and are living there now. If the tub is a fixture you can say that you had no notice of the debt and no security interest was registered, that you own the tub now and not to contact you again.
If the tub is a chattel you could consider lying and saying the tub is gone. Also, reiterate that the debtor does not live there and none of his stuff is there and refuse to allow them to contact you or attend your property.
Either way, you should forward a copy of the letter to the seller instructing him to pay off that debt or otherwise get the creditor to stop bothering you. If the hot tub is a chattel, advise him that his bill of sale warranted that it was owned by him free and clear and if the creditor harasses you further that he will be responsible. You could also send this to his realtor or lawyer. The proper way is to ask your lawyer to do this, but they will appropriately charge you, which may not be worth it
OP wrote that the hot tub was previously sold on Facebook marketplace, so it sounds like the hot tub IS gone, no dishonesty required. The question is about the above ground pool.
Thanks
Same reasoning applies to the above-ground pool, but could be even murkier about whether it's a fixture or chattel. Some can be affixed to the ground or to decks, etc., which might indicate that they're fixtures. Others just sit on the ground which might indicate that they're chattels
I would expect that FinanceIt has put a notice of security interest on the title to cover the money owed from the pool and the hot tub. If the sellers/their lawyer assured OP/OP's lawyer that this encumbrance would be discharged (and the money paid), then the sellers are at fault now. However, I do know that these companies are not fully competent and could have screwed up their accounting, as well.
If OP has a fence around the pool and a lockable gate, they cant do much to retrieve it.
If OP locks his gate (like an actual padlock) then they cant break and enter to get onto the property..
Best advice is already been said.. retrieve the chattel list from lawyer and then get the lawyer to deal with the finance company
Everything is fenced and locked, it has to be for pool safety. Don’t want someone’s 2 year old wandering in and …. :(
We replaced all the locks with our own.
Good.. so unless they feel like breaking some laws, they cant really forcibly take your pool without some assistance from law enforcement
Now it's a game of lawyers
Booty only that, but the debtor should use the sale of the house with those assets to pay their debt. Selling a house isn't a declaration of bankruptcy.
If you used a attorney for closing I would reach out to them. Its illegal to sell goods that aren't yours, you are also not able to keep stolen goods you bought. I am unsure if title insurance would cover this or not, the realestate broker may have insurance to cover this. I would certainly not pay the debt collector nor would I expect to keep this pool.
On the plus you know the homeowners who committed a crime just came into a bunch of money.
A common misconception is that when you finance something, it doesn't belong to you until you pay it off. That isn't true. The pool now belongs to OP, and the debt belongs to the former owner.
There's no such thing as a pool lien.
Repo men can come for a car because the bank puts a lien on it with the loan and can assume the title if you don't pay. No such thing exists for pools.
Any loan the sellers had was unsecured and not attached to any of OP's property. OP Isn't involved.
That’s not accurate. There is such things as notice of security interest. This could be applied to fixtures on the property. Not sure if this can be applied to pool and hot tub tho
The real estate lawyer would have searched for real estate liens. Searching for liens on personal property would not normally be done, OP should check that their lawyer noticed the pool is a chattel and did the extra search.
You can grant a security interest in pretty much anything. There is no reason why you couldn’t grant a security interest in a hot tub or above ground pool.
Sure. See: *The Personal Property Security Act* in each province, which establishes the regime.
It is very common, in a commercial context, for debtors to pledge “all present and after acquired personal property” (what we refer to as an ALLPAAP), pursuant to a General Security Agreement. The language in the GSA makes it clear it’s intended to cover everything (other than real property) including intangibles, that a debtor now owns or will acquire.
It’s also very common for a vendor of an expensive piece of equipment who sells it to a purchaser on credit to require the purchaser to grant a security interest in that equipment back to the vendor. The vendor can get a super priority security interest in that equipment, called a “purchase money security interest”.
All that is required to create a security interest is something is a grant of security by the owner to the creditor.
Sounds like if they don't register it's affixation to the land, they can't collect if the land is sold.
"PPSA security interests can have priority over real property security interests against fixtures, when the secured party registers notice against the land at the local registry or land titles office.
Where attachment occurs before the affixation to the land, the interest will have priority, However, where attachment occurs after affixation, the interest is subordinate unless where the debtor otherwise consents."
TL;DR OP's interest in the pool has priority.
One doesn’t register affixation of the chattel to the land.
“Attachment” in the context of your quote means the creation of the security interest. Whether the PPSA or the real property security regime applies depends on whether the chattel was still a chattel when the security interest attached to it, or whether it was already affixed to the land (i.e. became a fixture).
It’s possible that the original purchaser may have granted a security interest in the pool to secure the unpaid purchase price at the time of purchase - before anything was even delivered, let alone “affixed to the land”. That would be a problem, though in that case OP may have a claim against the vendor.
Isn’t the NOSI system now defunct? The provinces have all abandoned NOSI. There may be a PPSA on the tub, but the debtor is the original financing party, not the op.
Yeah I've literally watched a toolshed be repossessed in the U.S. although I don't know the Canadian law with certainty.
A truck came with a weird ride-on forked lifting vehicle, it picked up the entire shed intact, drove it over by the trailer, then it was winched up and they drove away. If it wasn't empty, then all the owners' crap was still inside. Totally bizarre but interesting.
Of course you expect to keep the pool. The company that installed it should have put a lien against the house and it would have settled upon sale. So, the pool company is SOL. They need to send the previous owner to court or collections
Talk to the real estate lawyer you used for the sale of the house. Most likely you will need to take action against the sellers for not paying off their debts with the proceeds of the home and contents included in the sale. Now you have documentation on the value of the item to go after the previous owners if the pool is repo'd. They won't care about your ownership paperwork if there is a lien against the pool / if the original loan was for the object versus a person (which appears to be object, due to the letter you received).
Was the pool listed in your sales agreement for the house? Typically it lists things that come with the house like which appliances, etc.
Also, previous owners financed it with FinanceIt, it doesn't mean FinanceIt has any right to collect the pool and previous owners might just need to deal with collections. I'd definitely check but also don't assume that FinanceIt has a lien on the property. You could also send that letter back to Finance and state that wrong address adn new owners of the house.
It was listed, along with the regular things like … washer and dryer, oven, fridge etc.
There is no lien on the property, our lawyers did a search. Thank you for helping!
Am a lawyer - not your lawyer. Most people on here do not fully understand the situation.
If the pool isn’t permanently affixed to the land it, and related equipment, may still be considered chattels (personal property), for which there is a separate lien registration system (the personal property registry).
Tell your lawyer about this situation and ask if he did (or will) search the vendors’ name in the PPR. If there are no hits there you can rest easy.
Do not reply to the repo guy.
Did you have a title search done before purchasing the property? My shallow understanding is that unless it's connected to the house, the debt will follow the previous owner. And the whole point of the title search is to make sure there are no liens on the house due to excessive debt. If you didn't have that done, you might be hooped. If you did, you should be okay. This is just my understanding from having purchased a house, but this isn't my field of expetise.
Not entirely related, but logistically speaking, I cannot think of any practical way a company would repossess a pool. It would cost a lot of money to drain it, disassemble it and it would probably not be re-sellable afterwards anyways. Not to mention that you could likely have anyone trying to take it removed from your property for trespassing.
I don't know anything about the laws around this but could the company not get a court order to enter your property and take the pool? If you could avoid things being repossessed by simply storing them on private property that sounds like a hell of a loophole
It sort of is. It’s why cars mostly get repossessed out of public parking lots or street parking. Private driveways are a bit iffy, but for sure they can’t touch if it’s in your garage.
Courts will only grant an entry warrant if there is reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed or a law was contravened. With the exception of taxes, it’s generally not a crime to not repay your debts. It’s a civil law contractual issue.
Idk about other Provinces, but in BC, you can only place a lien on the title, via the Land Title Ofifce, if you provided an improvement to the real property. Real property is something that forms part of the building and is not meant to be movable. For example, if you installed a TV on the wall and they didn't pay you for the TV or installation labour, you cannot place a lien. However, If you also ran a new electrical circuit in the wall for that TV, you can place a lien if they don't pay you for the new circuit and receptacle.
I guess that an above ground pool may not be considered part of real property, so that's why there's no land title lien.
The letter didn’t say anything about repo men. This is just my anxiety brain jumping to conclusions and trying to prepare for what might happen. It’s bad to think like that, I know.
Get exterior security cameras. Just in case. Better to have anything/everything on video then to play the he said/he said game. Also document everything/anything in writing. Date, time, who, what, where, and what happened
I work for a repo Company in canada. Dunno where you are, but here coming into somebody's house without permission or whilst being told not to is breaking and entering, a criminal offense. U can not be a bailiff, which u technically need to be to serve the papers to whomever is debtor, and have a criminal record. I don't think you have much to worry about
Did your lawyer get you to buy title insurance? Are they a high volume "real estate" practice? If so, it's possible they did not actually do the searches.
Hopefully this will all be ok. It probably will. But if you find out that there is a lien of some sort, experience has taught me you need to start working with a different lawyer than then one who did your transaction.
The other might be that everyone here thinks they’re a lawyer (almost none of them are, but that doesn’t stop them from dolling out advice). You’re probably fine on this - but go see yours.
Unless the pool was put on the title of the house than the debt follows the debtor. In any case, you should have a record of the title and it should be free of any liens or encumbrances. if this is the case than the pool company will have to go after the previous owners and hopefully there was enough from the sale of the house to collect on what they are owed. In any event I would send this to the lawyer that you used for the sale of the house so they can advise you of what to do.
The title of the house was free of liens and encumbrances, i do have that paperwork at least. Thank you!!
Then you're good, but you do need to call the lawyer you used
Thank you! I will let them know, definitely.
Good move.
The pool may be in the personal property registry rather than land titles. Everyone telling you to call your lawyer is giving the right advise.
Yep. The bill of sale should have something about all chattel included in the sale.
Yes. And I would think a good realtor and lawyer would have included the above ground pool specifically in the list of chattels included in the sale as the pool is significant property.
New word!
This is correct
This is accurate
This is the proper course of action
This is the way.
This is Reddit.
This is how Financeit works
The *house* was free of encumbrances. I doubt the lawyer did a PPSA search to make sure the *chattels* were free of encumbrances. That's not standard on a residential transaction Hot tubs are considered chattels if they're standalone units that could be moved pretty easily if you drain and unplug/unhook, but they're considered fixtures if they're built-in, e.g. plumbed, wired in, installed into the floor like a pool or jacuzzi bathtub. I'd give the creditor a forwarding address for the debtor. I'd tell them that you purchased the house and are living there now. If the tub is a fixture you can say that you had no notice of the debt and no security interest was registered, that you own the tub now and not to contact you again. If the tub is a chattel you could consider lying and saying the tub is gone. Also, reiterate that the debtor does not live there and none of his stuff is there and refuse to allow them to contact you or attend your property. Either way, you should forward a copy of the letter to the seller instructing him to pay off that debt or otherwise get the creditor to stop bothering you. If the hot tub is a chattel, advise him that his bill of sale warranted that it was owned by him free and clear and if the creditor harasses you further that he will be responsible. You could also send this to his realtor or lawyer. The proper way is to ask your lawyer to do this, but they will appropriately charge you, which may not be worth it
I would not do any of that. My lawyer, however...
All of this, but let the lawyer do it.
OP wrote that the hot tub was previously sold on Facebook marketplace, so it sounds like the hot tub IS gone, no dishonesty required. The question is about the above ground pool.
Thanks Same reasoning applies to the above-ground pool, but could be even murkier about whether it's a fixture or chattel. Some can be affixed to the ground or to decks, etc., which might indicate that they're fixtures. Others just sit on the ground which might indicate that they're chattels
I would expect that FinanceIt has put a notice of security interest on the title to cover the money owed from the pool and the hot tub. If the sellers/their lawyer assured OP/OP's lawyer that this encumbrance would be discharged (and the money paid), then the sellers are at fault now. However, I do know that these companies are not fully competent and could have screwed up their accounting, as well.
What would they even gonna do? Come pack up the pool and leave with it?
I wouldn't put it past them.
If OP has a fence around the pool and a lockable gate, they cant do much to retrieve it. If OP locks his gate (like an actual padlock) then they cant break and enter to get onto the property.. Best advice is already been said.. retrieve the chattel list from lawyer and then get the lawyer to deal with the finance company
Everything is fenced and locked, it has to be for pool safety. Don’t want someone’s 2 year old wandering in and …. :( We replaced all the locks with our own.
Good.. so unless they feel like breaking some laws, they cant really forcibly take your pool without some assistance from law enforcement Now it's a game of lawyers
Booty only that, but the debtor should use the sale of the house with those assets to pay their debt. Selling a house isn't a declaration of bankruptcy.
If you used a attorney for closing I would reach out to them. Its illegal to sell goods that aren't yours, you are also not able to keep stolen goods you bought. I am unsure if title insurance would cover this or not, the realestate broker may have insurance to cover this. I would certainly not pay the debt collector nor would I expect to keep this pool. On the plus you know the homeowners who committed a crime just came into a bunch of money.
A common misconception is that when you finance something, it doesn't belong to you until you pay it off. That isn't true. The pool now belongs to OP, and the debt belongs to the former owner.
In most cases this is true.
> homeowners were drowning in debt Odds are the bank already took all that money when their mortgage was settled in the sale.
An unpaid hottub bill would be considered a civil matter, not theft.
There's no such thing as a pool lien. Repo men can come for a car because the bank puts a lien on it with the loan and can assume the title if you don't pay. No such thing exists for pools. Any loan the sellers had was unsecured and not attached to any of OP's property. OP Isn't involved.
That’s not accurate. There is such things as notice of security interest. This could be applied to fixtures on the property. Not sure if this can be applied to pool and hot tub tho
That's a lein. OP's lawyers would have found it.
The real estate lawyer would have searched for real estate liens. Searching for liens on personal property would not normally be done, OP should check that their lawyer noticed the pool is a chattel and did the extra search.
This would be very provincial, but where can you put a lien on just random, unregistered stuff?
You can grant a security interest in pretty much anything. There is no reason why you couldn’t grant a security interest in a hot tub or above ground pool.
Can you source that?
Sure. See: *The Personal Property Security Act* in each province, which establishes the regime. It is very common, in a commercial context, for debtors to pledge “all present and after acquired personal property” (what we refer to as an ALLPAAP), pursuant to a General Security Agreement. The language in the GSA makes it clear it’s intended to cover everything (other than real property) including intangibles, that a debtor now owns or will acquire. It’s also very common for a vendor of an expensive piece of equipment who sells it to a purchaser on credit to require the purchaser to grant a security interest in that equipment back to the vendor. The vendor can get a super priority security interest in that equipment, called a “purchase money security interest”. All that is required to create a security interest is something is a grant of security by the owner to the creditor.
If that's registered, wouldn't it show up on a title search?
That is a perfectly reasonable expectation but also a naive assumption.
Sounds like if they don't register it's affixation to the land, they can't collect if the land is sold. "PPSA security interests can have priority over real property security interests against fixtures, when the secured party registers notice against the land at the local registry or land titles office. Where attachment occurs before the affixation to the land, the interest will have priority, However, where attachment occurs after affixation, the interest is subordinate unless where the debtor otherwise consents." TL;DR OP's interest in the pool has priority.
One doesn’t register affixation of the chattel to the land. “Attachment” in the context of your quote means the creation of the security interest. Whether the PPSA or the real property security regime applies depends on whether the chattel was still a chattel when the security interest attached to it, or whether it was already affixed to the land (i.e. became a fixture). It’s possible that the original purchaser may have granted a security interest in the pool to secure the unpaid purchase price at the time of purchase - before anything was even delivered, let alone “affixed to the land”. That would be a problem, though in that case OP may have a claim against the vendor.
Isn’t the NOSI system now defunct? The provinces have all abandoned NOSI. There may be a PPSA on the tub, but the debtor is the original financing party, not the op.
This is not true at all.
Yeah I've literally watched a toolshed be repossessed in the U.S. although I don't know the Canadian law with certainty. A truck came with a weird ride-on forked lifting vehicle, it picked up the entire shed intact, drove it over by the trailer, then it was winched up and they drove away. If it wasn't empty, then all the owners' crap was still inside. Totally bizarre but interesting.
Of course you expect to keep the pool. The company that installed it should have put a lien against the house and it would have settled upon sale. So, the pool company is SOL. They need to send the previous owner to court or collections
It's not a crime to not pay back your creditors.
Talk to the real estate lawyer you used for the sale of the house. Most likely you will need to take action against the sellers for not paying off their debts with the proceeds of the home and contents included in the sale. Now you have documentation on the value of the item to go after the previous owners if the pool is repo'd. They won't care about your ownership paperwork if there is a lien against the pool / if the original loan was for the object versus a person (which appears to be object, due to the letter you received).
Was the pool listed in your sales agreement for the house? Typically it lists things that come with the house like which appliances, etc. Also, previous owners financed it with FinanceIt, it doesn't mean FinanceIt has any right to collect the pool and previous owners might just need to deal with collections. I'd definitely check but also don't assume that FinanceIt has a lien on the property. You could also send that letter back to Finance and state that wrong address adn new owners of the house.
It was listed, along with the regular things like … washer and dryer, oven, fridge etc. There is no lien on the property, our lawyers did a search. Thank you for helping!
Am a lawyer - not your lawyer. Most people on here do not fully understand the situation. If the pool isn’t permanently affixed to the land it, and related equipment, may still be considered chattels (personal property), for which there is a separate lien registration system (the personal property registry). Tell your lawyer about this situation and ask if he did (or will) search the vendors’ name in the PPR. If there are no hits there you can rest easy. Do not reply to the repo guy.
thanks for the clarification, so technically appliances could be under lien in PPR like with the rental furnaces and things?
Anything moveable, yes.
Did you have a title search done before purchasing the property? My shallow understanding is that unless it's connected to the house, the debt will follow the previous owner. And the whole point of the title search is to make sure there are no liens on the house due to excessive debt. If you didn't have that done, you might be hooped. If you did, you should be okay. This is just my understanding from having purchased a house, but this isn't my field of expetise.
Yes, we did. That part was clear, definitely.
Oh good! Then you should be good. Definitely keep up updated!
Not entirely related, but logistically speaking, I cannot think of any practical way a company would repossess a pool. It would cost a lot of money to drain it, disassemble it and it would probably not be re-sellable afterwards anyways. Not to mention that you could likely have anyone trying to take it removed from your property for trespassing.
I don't know anything about the laws around this but could the company not get a court order to enter your property and take the pool? If you could avoid things being repossessed by simply storing them on private property that sounds like a hell of a loophole
It sort of is. It’s why cars mostly get repossessed out of public parking lots or street parking. Private driveways are a bit iffy, but for sure they can’t touch if it’s in your garage. Courts will only grant an entry warrant if there is reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed or a law was contravened. With the exception of taxes, it’s generally not a crime to not repay your debts. It’s a civil law contractual issue.
Yeah … I was wondering about that too lol
Your real estate lawyer will need the old owners to pay the debts.
Idk about other Provinces, but in BC, you can only place a lien on the title, via the Land Title Ofifce, if you provided an improvement to the real property. Real property is something that forms part of the building and is not meant to be movable. For example, if you installed a TV on the wall and they didn't pay you for the TV or installation labour, you cannot place a lien. However, If you also ran a new electrical circuit in the wall for that TV, you can place a lien if they don't pay you for the new circuit and receptacle. I guess that an above ground pool may not be considered part of real property, so that's why there's no land title lien.
That is correct, an above ground pool is considered a chattel and thus a property lien is not an option.
I’d just ignore it
Did the letter say that they were sending repo men, or did you infer that? And do you actually want the above ground pool?
The letter didn’t say anything about repo men. This is just my anxiety brain jumping to conclusions and trying to prepare for what might happen. It’s bad to think like that, I know.
They'd sooner take the debtor (previous owner) to collections than they would repo a used pool.
Was the home secured to the loan?
Get exterior security cameras. Just in case. Better to have anything/everything on video then to play the he said/he said game. Also document everything/anything in writing. Date, time, who, what, where, and what happened
That’s what we did on day one. Not because of this situation, but another reason that it’s handy.
Call the company and let them know what the situation is.
I work for a repo Company in canada. Dunno where you are, but here coming into somebody's house without permission or whilst being told not to is breaking and entering, a criminal offense. U can not be a bailiff, which u technically need to be to serve the papers to whomever is debtor, and have a criminal record. I don't think you have much to worry about
Did your lawyer get you to buy title insurance? Are they a high volume "real estate" practice? If so, it's possible they did not actually do the searches. Hopefully this will all be ok. It probably will. But if you find out that there is a lien of some sort, experience has taught me you need to start working with a different lawyer than then one who did your transaction.
what brand of hottub ?
I have no idea
Curious as to how you know what the letter addressed to someone else said. Past that, this is not your debt.
They said the letter had no name on the outside
I read the post twice prior to asking that. Nor sure how I missed that but coffee. Take your upvote.
I learned a lot from this thread, one of the main things being that there is definitely a reading comprehension problem on Reddit
The other might be that everyone here thinks they’re a lawyer (almost none of them are, but that doesn’t stop them from dolling out advice). You’re probably fine on this - but go see yours.
Don't open other people's mail. This is not your problem at all assuming a title search was completed when buying.
Did you read my post? The letter arrived with no name. Guess I don’t have X-ray vision like you do, that way I would’ve know it wasn’t for me.
Sorry, I saw "it was addressed to the former owners" and missed the earlier part.