The North Dakota Supreme Court has cleared the way for Ford Motor Credit Co. to collect a deficiency from the estate of a borrower who defaulted on a pickup loan before his death.
At issue was the fact that the lender sold the vehicle, a 1999 Ford Ranger, at a closed, dealers-only auction. The estate of the borrower, Greg Sagmiller, claimed that the sale was commercially unreasonable because had the truck been sold at retail there would not have been a $2,500 deficiency between the amount owed Ford Credit and the amount obtained from the auction sale.
The decision means ``in the eyes of the law, it is commercially reasonable to sell (the collateral) at a dealer-only ...