Couple loses farm over courthouse error

Let me get straight what happened here:

1) Couple works hard their whole lives as long-haul truckers.

2) They cash in their retirement savings to buy a farm.

3) ORIX, a financial services giant, tries making them pay a debt owed by the farm's previous owner.

4) A court seizes the couple's farm to make them pay - even though it's not their debt.

5) The court also makes the couple pay ORIX's legal fees.

This actually happened in Dixie County, Florida.

Why was the couple being held responsible for someone else's debt? Because the courthouse didn't index the lien against the previous owner - even though the lien was recorded. This happened because some out-of-state company that dealt with the lien was so stingy that it paid for only one document instead of two - causing the county to refuse to index it.

Yes, some judge is actually making the couple pay for someone else's incompetence. The farm was to be seized and sold at an auction. Their life savings is gone. Gone into thin air.

It's even more unconscionable that the court made the couple pay $5,000 in ORIX's legal expenses.

How greedy can ORIX be to hold someone responsible for a debt they had nothing to do with and demand they reimburse them for legal fees? How broken can the courts be to allow this?

Under corporatism, it's a wonder this hasn't happened more. Corporatism means financial institutions and other corporations never have the burden to prove their case. When they say a debt is owed them, courts are happy to give them what they think is owed.

Naturally, the wingnutosphere is saying the whole thing is the couple's fault for not buying title insurance. This wouldn't have done any good, because title insurance doesn't cover clerical incompetence by others.

How about if the wingnutosphere gets ridicule insurance? It doesn't cost a thing. All that the wingnuts who populate right-wing blogs need to do to keep me from ridiculing them every time they blame the victim for something like this is to at least know what they're talking about before spouting off.

(Source: http://www.theledger.com/article/20081013/NEWS/810130355/1003)