Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Virginia

Your question does not clarify whether the creditor has already filed a lawsuit or not, or what has happened so far.

However, I know that it is quite common for debt collectors to make outrageous threats and intimidate people.

First, nobody can do anything to collect a debt without first filing AND WINNING a lawsuit (except of course repossession of a car).

It is quite common for debt collectors to say they are going to do this or that when they have not even filed a lawsuit yet. This is nonsense and so clearly false that it may violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in my opinon.

If a creditor files a lawsuit -- through a Virginia attorney appearing in court (NOT just a debt collector) -- and then actually WINS the lawsuit, then the creditor has some options to try to collect on the court judgment.

Until a creditor is holding a "judgment" -- an order by the court deciding that you do, actually, owe the money -- a creditor can do NOTHING at all. (Obvious exceptions for repossessing a car or a mortgage foreclosure.)

If a creditor wins a court judgment, the most common ways of collecting on the judgment are to "garnish" one's salary from one's employer or to "garnish" one's bank account.

While it is legally possible to attach and try to sell real property, I would be astonished if any law firm would do this without first trying to collect in the more routine, far-simpler way of garnishment.

Donig things like trying to sell a house is simply a lot more work and time and expense. So they would -- as a practical matter -- try such a thing only as a last resort.

When the house is owned by 2 people, and only 1 person owes money, this is vastly more complicated. So iti s very unlikely that a law firm would actually try this.

I am not saying it could not be done, but the number of steps involved, each quite complicated, is a very big obstacle. If someone asked me to do it, I could do it. But debt collection runs on a volume asembly line / numbers game. They could be collecting 100 other debts in the tiem it woudl take them to try to sell a house.

NOTE: This is of course different from a mortgage. The Deed of Trust already includes, baked in, the power of the bank to foreclose. That is the whole point of a Deed of Trust. Here you are talking aobut a random creditor who does not have a mortgage on the real estate.

Addig to the difficulty, if there is a mortgage on the property, the creidtor's interest would be JUNIOR to the mortgage(s). Any sales proceeds would have to go FIRST to cover the mortgage. The creditor could only get what is left over.

However, half of the surplus would belong to you, as well. . So the creitor could only dip into 1/2 of the surplus left over.

Now, you asked the question do you have a say in how much they sell the home for?

Technically, the creditor cannot decide this.

The home would (at worst, if it came to that) be sold at AUCTION. The creditor would be required to publicize the auction, and sell to the highest bidder. A failure to adequately publicize the auction to generate lots of bidders might make it defective.

You would then be entitled to any surplus left over from selling the house after paying the debt.

NOTE: You would not have to wait until that point. You could sell the house yoursel, and simply pay off the debt. This is NOT like a mortgage. You don't need their permission to sell the house.

FIRST, you should check if the debt is actually valid and not too old uner the statute of limitations.

SECOND, why don't you explore renting the house out and using the money to pay off the debt -- to the extent that it is actually valid.

THIRD, if worse comes to worst and there is any danger of the house being sold outside of your control, go ahead and sell it yourself to make sure that you get a good price.

The cerditor CANNOT limit your freedom to sell the house at your own price under your own control. The only thing they can do is demand that WHEN it sells, some of the money must go directly to them. At the closing all liens on the house will be paid off before any remaining money is released to the sellers.

If a debt collector independent of the creditor is saying this, this may be abusive conduct that violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Debt collectors often make such