A Langley woman who has spent years fighting the sale of her late father’s home now owes more than $240,000 in penalties and has been banned from any more legal actions against a local credit union.
After Oskar Hoessmann died almost a decade ago, his daughter Janet Hoessmann became the executor of his estate and continued to live in his South Langley home.
There was still $60,000 owing on the mortgage, but according to a recent court ruling, Janet Hoessmann had a net worth of $34.57 and “a credit record replete with failures to pay.”
Over the following two years, Hoessmann negotiated with the Aldergrove Credit Union, which had issued the mortgage, giving interest-only payments for several months. However, multiple payments were missed or below the required amount, and the mortgage fell into arrears.
The credit union foreclosed – after a six-month grace period – and sold the home for $766,000 in 2013, with the money paying off the mortgage, taxes, and other fees. The rest was held by the court, because Hoessmann and her brothers were locked in their own legal dispute over their father’s will. She was eventually removed as executor of the estate.
Hoessmann refused to leave the home, and in June of 2013 she was removed by bailiffs, her personal possessions put into storage.
Despite the fact that the home has long since been sold, Hoessmann has repeatedly brought legal actions against the Aldergrove Credit Union and the developer who bought the home.
“The plaintiff has persisted in bringing to this court positions which have no hope of success, simply refusing to take the ‘no’ in a negative court order as an answer,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Ball wrote in a Feb. 22 decision.
“This action is a profound example of vexatious litigation,” he wrote.
A list of 23 judges and justices has been involved over the past several years with various appeals and petitions, many of them abandoned after a time.
“The cost to the public for the court system being tied up with this proceeding has also been dramatically high, and for little apparent positive purpose,” Ball wrote.
Because of that, Ball ruled that Hoessmann will be ruled a vexatious litigant, and cannot sue the Aldergrove Credit Union without permission.
The judge also ruled he would impose special costs – yet to be determined – on Hoessmann, to be paid to the credit union, because of the unfounded claims in her legal actions against the credit union.
Ball wrote that “the reprehensible and remarkably wasteful conduct of the plaintiff in bringing this case is worthy of rebuke in the form of special costs.”
Those costs will be on top of the $243,727.62 which she already owes in various court-ordered costs and legal fees.
Hoessmann was already declared a vexatious litigant once before, in early 2017 during a court battle with her brothers.
However, British Columbia does not have a registry of vexatious litigants. This makes it difficult to identify vexatious litigants in the court system.