After a property is sold, settled and all liabilities and debts have been paid and recorded, a defendant (the owner of record at the time the court ordered the sale) may recover any excess balance remaining on the account through the Sheriff’s Home Asset Recovery Team also known as H.A.R.T.
A Continuous Commitment
In previous administrations most of these excess funds were never returned to the defendants. Beginning in 2012 the H.A.R.T. unit of the Sheriff’s Office more aggressively searched out those owed money, validating which defendants are eligible to receive a H.A.R.T. payment and connecting with those individuals to put a check in their hands.
Getting Results
In the interactive chart to the left, you can hover over it with your cursor to see how much money H.A.R.T. has returned since 2012.
Helping Real People
The success of this program is having a real impact on real people. In April 2015, the Sheriff’s Office presented Thelma Denise Peake, whose organization West Philadelphia on the Move, Inc. received over $40,000 from the sale of two properties it owned, which pushed H.A.R.T. over a record-breaking $1 million in returned funds for the quarter. The money, said Peake, will go “back into the community to continue fighting for a better West Philadelphia.”