Oklahoma Contractor Accused Of Filing Faulty Liens

A metro homeowner says a contractor is out there essentially charging $31,000 for doing nothing. 9 investigates started digging into it, and since then, law enforcement has too. And we found out this could easily happen to just about anyone.

A mile and a half from where the tornado ripped through Briarwood Elementary school in Moore is Sheila Frazier's property. She says the man she hired to repair storm damage gas left her in a real financial bind.

A few days after hiring Jeremy Owens with Jeremy Owens Enterprises, Frazier says she started getting a bad vibe. But thanks to a law known as the Cooling Off Rule, which gives you the right to cancel certain contracts within so many days, Frazier sent Owens a certified letter and texted him saying the deal was off.

So imagine her surprise when she got a notice saying work was done on her property in the amount of $31,225.

Owens had placed a lien on her place.

What this is means is now she has to go to the expense of hiring an attorney, going to court and getting the lien lifted. Because as it stands, she can't cash her insurance check because they have a clause about liens. And if she wants to sell her place, she has to take care of the lien first.

Jeremy Owens agreed to sit down and answer our questions. He says he never got the certified letter to cancel the job, because his business was also damaged in the tornado, but he did get Frazier's text messages. And he filed the lien less than a week later.

We found Owens has a recent history of filing liens, at least nine in Oklahoma, Cleveland and Canadian Counties, and even one against the place where his own father lives. But his attorney defends the move.

Tammy Bellinson is the Cleveland county Court Clerk and she points out on their paperwork, it clearly says work has been performed.

So how easy is it to file a lien? If you have $27.80, a few minutes to fill out a form and can make a trip to a county clerk, you can file a lien.

That's why these court clerks say they'd like to see the law change, for instance, one would have to go before a judge before a lien could be filed.

Frazier couldn't agree more.

Since we started our investigation about two months ago, the Insurance Commission and Moore Police Department have done their own investigations into a total of nine cases, including Frazier's. All have been forwarded on for possible prosecution.

Late last week, Amanda Taylor talked with Owen's attorney and they have lifted Frazier's lien. He says they got proof that she canceled her contract within the terms of the cooling off rule.

So what do you do if a lien's been unlawfully placed against you? File a police report, contact the attorney general's office, and go ahead and call the Insurance Commission, they've done a lot of work to help these current homeowners out.

But until the law changes, chances are, you will have to go to court and argue your case before a judge.