In 1999, a merchant sold furniture to a person on credit and the debtor executed a security agreement. The debt was to be repaid in monthly payments. During the four year statute of limitations for a civil debt, the merchant claims that he tried to locate the debtor to repo the furniture. The merchant claims that the debtor had moved. He claims that the debtor had moved on more than one occassion. Finally, the debtor was asked to move from his last residence by the landlord. The debtor placed all of the furniture on the porch of the rental and went to jail on an unrelated matter. While the debtor was in jail, the landlord got a person to dispose of the mortgaged property. The merchant found out that the mortgaged property had been removed or otherwise disposed of in some manner approximately 16 months ago. Now the merchant is wanting the debtor arrested for hendering a secured creditor. Before I have the debtor arrested, I am seeking a second opinion.

I noticed that "hindering" was misspelled after my post was sent. I have an irate merchant so please give me some guidance.

Simple, don't let the merchants, who give credit to anyone crawling by, get you sucked into their maze. In 4 years he couldn't get anything done, now all of the sudden the CA or DA has to clean up the merchants bad business problems. He's telling you he was diligent, but 16 months is a long time to go by and still argue diligence.

Let him scream, but tell him no.

Where is the criminal intent?

By the way, you can edit your own post, even after it has been sent, at least for a little while, by clicking on the little edit icon above your post.

You can absolutely clog up your office by getting involved in routine debtor/creditor disputes. Before you know it you will have every bank in town in your office when a borrower goes into default and fails to voluntarily return the collateral.

In reality, the lender is coming to you in this case because he has no civil remedy that will net him anything. The security interest your talking about is a purchase money security interest (PMSI) that is not perfected unless he files it in the county clerk's office. You might take a look at the county clerk's records to see how seriously he takes his own security interest. If he never even took the time to perfect his interest, that could give you a clue as to how seriously he takes his own security interest.

In my experience, the only hindering cases that can successfully be prosecuted are when you have a D that takes specific steps to avoid a repossession (i.e. parking his car in a covered shed six streets away from his house when he knows the repo man is coming).

Robert DuBoise

Since it appears the lienholder never located the debtor, I assume he never made demand for payment or that possession of the property be delivered to him. Thus, no presumption of an intent to hinder under 32.33(c). And no other evidence of such intent (concealing or harming value in itself is not enough) and refusal to deliver or even disclose location usually is not enough. See Cravey, 980 S.W.2d 545. The creditor pretty well hindered himself.