On January 1, 2022, HB2617 will become the law of Arizona.  Your home is no longer protected from your judgment creditors, which will have a devastating effect on Arizona’s consumers, and those hardest hit by Covid-19.

This bill was promoted by Ben Toma, House Majority Leader, bought and paid for by the creditors and debt collectors.

There are three parts to the bill and its amendments:

  1.  The   bill   increases   a   homeowner’s   homestead   exemption   from   $150,000   to $250,000 effective January 2022.  YEA, THAT IS WONDERFUL, BUT WHAT DOES THE HOMEOWNER GIVE UP?
  2.  The bill retroactively turns any existing judgment into a lien on the judgment debtor’s homestead (some that has never been allowed in Arizona – back to Statehood).
  3.  The Toma amendment to the bill creates a new right for judgment creditors to receive proceeds otherwise exempt if a person refinances the mortgage on their home.

MUSINGS BY DIANE:

Politically, this is a very strange time.  Politicians are doing things that only a criminal would try (from the insurrection on January 6, 2021, to selling their soul to a narcissist).  Arizona has become the laughing stock of the nation (equal to Florida and Texas).  Voting rights are something to hold hostage.  Why?  Where is honesty,  respect and common courtesy? 

Arizona legislators just invaded your homestead protection.  They cloaked this invasion in an appealing cover of raising the homestead from $150,000 to $250,000.  But, just like the Greeks, this was a Trojan horse.  Pretty on the outwide, but deadly on the inside.  After January 1, 2022 all past valid judgments are now going to attach to your homestead.

Eventually everyone is going to harmed by this change in the homestead law.  Secondary lending will slow down, and, probably, disappear completely for those with modest incomes.  The consequences of refinancing are not going to be known by the common Arizonian, at least not until they try to refinance their home, only to find out the money goes to the creditor(s) who have judgments, not to the homeowner.  So much for paying for the new roof, or dad’s heart surgery.

When will this insanity stop? When will people be more important than the dollar?

– Diane L. Drain

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