Unlike bank account garnishment and garnishment, which in the case of non-governmental entities always require a personal judgment against the debtor by debt collectors, recovery can and usually does occur without any type of court action. Peeps may sneak out and take your car in the dead of night, or storm into your home, with a law enforcement officer or your permission, and take a washing machine or other consumables without a warrant. How can this happen?
Recovery is a “contractual” right. That means that when you bought the item, you entered into a contract stating that the debt you incurred was a “secured” debt (secured by specific property, including the item you were buying and sometimes other items as well). It also gave the seller the right to take the item back without suing him first if he failed to make payments. For non-government entities, if you didn’t give the company the right to take things, they’re not allowed to do so without a court order, and doing so is criminal. Even if you owe them the price of the thing, the legal “title” or right to it stays with you until a court takes it from you.
If a company seizes the property without any contractual right to do so, it is called a “conversion.” If you have a general right, but for some reason this right has not been perfected (for example, because you were not provided a contractually required waiting period), it is called an “undue recovery.” Because recovery is sometimes done in secret by private individuals, the rules are generally quite strict that recovery agents cannot cause a “breach of the peace.” That is, they cannot hit you, or even touch you. They can’t use any kind of force at all. You don’t need to respect their command to “give them the keys” or get out of the way when they try to get away from your car. In many, if not all states, any unwanted contact during a recovery is an assault and a breach of the peace that makes the recovery unlawful. Therefore, I used to advise my clients to block the recovery agents with their bodies. It is questionable whether you have the right to initiate contact or defend the property in question with violence.
Of course, this rule changes if the repossessors bring the police with them. Recovery may be unlawful, and the police presence may also be illegal, but the police presence itself is considered coercive, so you can sue for wrongful recovery without having to stand in front of the police.
After repossession, the company that has repossessed the property typically files an action in court to “restore” title to the property. In my experience, these actions are essentially never contested, but if for some reason the repossession was “wrongful,” that would generally be a defense to the transfer of title sought by garnishers.
Most states have very specific “rights of redemption” for items that have been properly repossessed. You can find these for your state by Google, the term “right of redemption” and the repossessed item and the name of your state. These rights are usually expensive to invoke, as they typically provide for full payment of late payments on the contract plus various fees. But sometimes people have the means and the need to redeem their property from repossession agents. In most, if not all, states, you would have that right, which would normally be exercised by intervening in a lawsuit brought by the repossessing company to restore title.
Repossession usually happens to the permanently disposed, the poor, who often do not litigate to protect their rights. For this reason, even repossessors can be careless in their actions (or even indifferent to the law). This may give you the opportunity to avoid recovery or force the company to return the items to you.
