See Evans sidebar for a collection of all posts on the Evans case.
Chris Evans filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on October 27, 2009. The filing took place a day before a hearing in Madison County Chancery Court took place to decide whether to freeze his assets. Mr. Evans stated he had less than 100 creditors, less than $50,000 in assets. and less than $10 million in liabilities.
The petition protected Evans to some degree from Mississippi Valley Title's lawsuit accusing him of defrauding many banks and insurance companies filed in September. Federal bankruptcy law stays most state civil proceedings against one in bankruptcy as they are considered a potential claim and thus subject to the Bankruptcy Court's jurisdiction. Copy of bankruptcy petition
The amended creditor list includes banks primarily from Mississippi and Texas. The banks immediately starting filing notices of appearance with the Court after Evans filed his petition. The following banks and their attorneys filed such notices:
Les Alvis, Bancorp South, 10/28/09
Kristina Johnson of Watkins Ludlam; Bank of Forest, First State Bank, Holmes County Bank, 10/27/09
Patrick McAllister, Williford, McAllister, & Jacobus, Community Bank, 10/28/09
William Leech, Danny Ruhl, Robert Richardson of Copeland, Cook, Taylor & Bush, Madison County Bank, 10/29/09
Scott Jones, Adams & Reece, Mississippi Valley Title Insurance Company & Old Republic Insurance Company, 10/30/09
Jeff Rawlings, Rawlings & McInnis, Merchants & Farmers Bank, 10/27/09
Kathy Smith of Corlew, Munford, & Smith, Britton & Koontz Bank 11/9/09
Joe Joseph, Bess Parish, Bank of America 11/9/09
However, the banks didn't just stop with filing their lil ole notices but also asked them to let them start sending the repo man out to get their land. Several filed motions to lift the automatic stay on specific properties or other assets so they could take possession of them.
Bankfirst is one such creditor. Its motion stated: "3. Bankfirst is a secured creditor of the Debtor pursuant to the following instruments" The bank then describes the details regarding a mortgage issued on a property owned by Chris Evans and claims Evans gave it a $100,000 CD as a security interest which the bank still holds. The bank states Evans owes it more than the amount of the CD and seeks to liquidate the CD. Copy of motion. Community Bank's motion claims Evans is in arrears for nearly six thousand dollars on a note for $166,000 and that it should be allowed to take possession of the property. The motion filed by Merchants & Planters Bank similar in nature to the one filed by Community Bank and seeks possession of a property on which the bank issued a lien to Chris Evans.
Mississippi Valley Title also filed a Motion from Relief from the Automatic Stay on November 6, 2009. MVT asked the Court to allow it to pursue its fraud lawsuit against Mr. Evans in state court up to the "entry of the judgement". The motion accuses Charles Evans, Jr. of providing it with "false title certificates" and that the Evans-owned entity never had title to the land on which the mortgage was issued by the bank involved in each transaction. Copy of motion MVT has also filed a motion to allow two attorney from Alabama to appear as counsel for Mississippi Valley Title.
If Chris Evans sought refuge in bankruptcy it is clear the banks and insurance companies he allegedly defrauded are determined to fight him in that venue. Its not too surprising as the banks realize (and several told me they didn't know the scope of this case until this website provided an itemized list of the loans provided to the Evans brothers) how big this case really is and are now aggressively moving to protect their interests and seek some form of justice from the Evans brothers.
Copy of list of creditors
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Banks and Mississippi Valley Title fight Evans bankruptcy
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9 comments:
Good job KF! Looks like the bright lights are flicked on now. Wonder just how much deeper this case can get??
are you saying that MVT did not tell the banks what all was going on?
No idea. I have no clue what notifications took place between the insurance companies and banks.
I do know that MVT ordered title searches on many of that tracts, requesting their abstractors only show Deeds of Trust out of the vested owners, and show NOTHING executed fraudulently... I don't know if this has anything to do with 12:14's question, but it does seem relevant.
KINGFISH. Front page above the fold of the Sun!!!!! Major congrats. You are the #1 investigative reporter in the metro area at this time. Keep up the outstanding work.
How is it that Chris can have less than 50,000.00 in assets but still own his house in Dinsmoor?
"I do know that MVT ordered title searches on many of that tracts, requesting their abstractors only show Deeds of Trust out of the vested owners, and show NOTHING executed fraudulently... I don't know if this has anything to do with 12:14's question, but it does seem relevant.
November 12, 2009 10:52 PM"
Most likely it shows MVT trying to get a handle on what, if anything, was recorded legitimately. All of the Deeds of Trust we've heard about so far were given by entities that had no deed to the property. Any Deed of Trust given by the true owner of record is going to trump all the others. MVT wants to know who holds the trump.
November 13, 2009 1:15 PM:
Why even get a title search that does not reveal any other claims to the land, slander of title, clouds on title, possible conflicts, etc? It "almost" sounds like they are defrauding whoever ordered the title searches from them! I don't get it!
"Why even get a title search that does not reveal any other claims to the land, slander of title, clouds on title, possible conflicts, etc? It "almost" sounds like they are defrauding whoever ordered the title searches from them! I don't get it!"
Those limited searches were no doubt ordered by MVT themselves, in order to find out what a valid, no-prior-knowledge title search would show, compared to a search performed with knowledge of the bogus liens.
You need both in order to get a clear picture of what's in the records. Title searchers follow a paper trail that leads from name to name. A sells to B, B sells to C, C goes to the bank. That's a legit chain of title, with a proper trail leading to the bank's security (good title to C, good mortgage from C to the bank). Anything that falls outside that straightforward pattern is bogus. (Say, C has good title, but D goes to the bank => Red flags, "no $$ for you," etc.)
But here's a typical Evans' title: A sells to B (usually Woodgreen). B has good title, but the banks are visited by C, D, E, F, G, G-prime, J, K, N, O, X, Y and Z. And the banks lend $$ to all of them, and record their deeds of trust in the land records.
Here's what the title searcher finds: Good title to B -- and nothing else. A straightforward title search reveals no borrowers, because there is no paper trail from B to any of the borrowers. (Unless Woodgreen was a borrower, which they usually weren't). Result: banks which loaned $$ to C, D, E, F, G, G-prime, J, K, N, O, X, Y and Z have no secured interest as established by the land records. And what's in the land records (the title) is the thing that title insurance companies insure.
So, nothing strange about checking to see what the "legit" picture is. The next step is to find all the bogus liens, but that is nearly impossible to do because there is no trail leading to them. You cannot find all of them without prior knowledge of what to look for. Without a list of every Evans company involved (29 and counting) or a request from each individual bank, a title searcher will never know if he's found them all. You can bet MVT had lots of pairs of eyes looking at the records, some going in blind, some with full knowledge.
$50 million in bogus mortgages, hidden in plain sight. That man knew how land records work.
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