Michael Alberty v. Jennifer Gaddy

Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t your typical “I forgot to pay the mortgage” story. No, this is a divorce decree turned mortgage horror show, where a former spouse’s promise to pay the house note turned into a fiery legal dumpster blaze—complete with unpaid taxes, missing insurance, and a $146,000 debt that someone, somehow, still expects to collect. And now? The house is on the chopping block, not because of a bank, but because one ex is suing the other like they’re strangers in a courtroom cage match. Welcome to Crazy Civil Court, where love dies, but liens live forever.

So who are these people? On one side, we’ve got Michael Alberty—the plaintiff, the lender, the guy holding the paper, and, according to court documents, the former husband of Jennifer Gaddy. They were married once, presumably said “for better or worse” at some point, and then—plot twist—got divorced in December 2023 in Cherokee County, Oklahoma. That divorce, Case No. FD-2023-126, wasn’t just about splitting up the toaster and deciding who keeps the dog. No, it came with a financial time bomb buried in Paragraph 8 of the Agreed Decree: Jennifer Gaddy would take over the family home at 211 N Edmond Street in Muskogee, and in exchange, she’d pay Michael Alberty $145,000 for it. Not all at once, of course—this isn’t a cash-in-a-suitcase situation. It was structured like a promissory note, the legal version of “I owe you,” with payments due over time. Think of it like an IOU with interest, signed, notarized, and filed with the court. Michael wasn’t the bank, but thanks to the divorce, he became the bank. And Jennifer? She became the borrower. A role she, apparently, did not enjoy.

Now, let’s talk about what happened. According to Michael’s petition, filed on February 11, 2026—exactly three years to the month after the divorce decree—Jennifer stopped paying. Not just a little late. Not “I forgot to mail the check.” No, she defaulted. The first missed payment? February 15, 2024. That’s two years of nonpayment, folks. And not just one payment—many subsequent payments, as the filing dramatically puts it. By the time Michael sued, the balance owed had ballooned to $142,764, plus interest that ticks upward at $27.66 per day. That’s not chump change. That’s a new car every few years. And get this—Jennifer didn’t just ghost the mortgage. She also ghosted the property insurance. The divorce decree required her to keep it, but no proof of coverage for 2024 or 2025. That means the house—the very asset securing the debt—is sitting out there, uninsured. A tree could fall on it tomorrow, a raccoon could start a meth lab in the attic, and poof—no payout. Meanwhile, property taxes? Also unpaid. And who stepped in like a financially responsible superhero? Michael. He paid them—for 2023, 2024, and 2025—totaling $3,683. So now he’s not just owed the original debt, but also out of pocket for taxes on a house he doesn’t live in, doesn’t control, and, one assumes, doesn’t particularly want to own. This isn’t just a loan gone bad—it’s a full-blown property management nightmare.

So why are they in court? Because Michael wants out. He wants his money. And since Jennifer isn’t paying, he’s invoking the nuclear option: foreclosure. That’s right—Michael is trying to take the house back and sell it to recoup what he’s owed. Now, most foreclosures are filed by banks or mortgage companies, but here? It’s a private individual using a court-ordered promissory note as the legal weapon. The claim is straightforward: Jennifer broke the terms of the divorce agreement, failed to pay, failed to insure, failed to tax-pay, and now Michael is entitled to foreclose. He’s asking for a judgment in personam (that’s Latin for “against the person,” meaning Jennifer personally owes the money) and in rem (against the property itself). Translation: “You don’t pay? We take the house.” The court would then order the Muskogee County Sheriff to auction off the property, pay off the debt from the proceeds, and if there’s anything left, send it to the court. And if there’s not enough? Jennifer still owes the difference. Oh, and Michael wants attorney fees too, because of course he does—this is America, and someone’s gotta pay for the lawyer who wrote “per diem” three times in one petition.

Now, let’s talk about what he wants: $146,447. Is that a lot? Well, for a house in Muskogee, Oklahoma? It depends. The property is a sliver of a lot—220 feet of Lot 6 in Victory Place Addition. Not exactly a mansion on a hill. But $146k in today’s market? That’s not nothing. For context, the average home price in Muskogee County is around $150,000. So Michael isn’t asking for an insane sum—he’s asking for basically the full market value of the house, plus interest and fees. And remember, he’s already paid over $3,600 in taxes. So this isn’t some greedy overreach. It’s more like, “I’ve been the responsible adult in this situation for two years while you vanished, and now I want to be made whole.” He’s also asking for declaratory relief (a court saying, “Yes, this debt is valid”) and injunctive relief (a court order forcing action, like the sheriff selling the house). In plain English: “Judge, please confirm I’m not crazy, and make someone sell this house so I can get my money.”

Our take? The most absurd part isn’t the debt. It’s not even the fact that a divorce decree turned into a foreclosure filing. It’s that nobody insured the house. Imagine this: two exes, legally bound to each other through a financial agreement, and one of them just… stops caring. No insurance. No taxes. No payments. Meanwhile, the other ex is out of pocket, stressed, and now has to hire a lawyer named Justin Stout (yes, really) to sue her in court. It’s like a sitcom plot written by a mortgage broker. We’re not rooting for the money. We’re not even rooting for the house. We’re rooting for common sense. Did Jennifer think this would just go away? Did she assume Michael would keep paying forever? Or did she just… forget? Because if this were a true crime podcast, the real mystery wouldn’t be “Who defaulted?” It’d be “How do two adults reach this level of financial chaos and still think it’s fine?”

At the end of the day, this case isn’t about love or hate. It’s about paperwork. A divorce decree became a loan agreement, a loan became a default, and now a home could be sold off because one person didn’t treat a legally binding promise like, well, a legally binding promise. And while we’re not lawyers (we’re entertainers, remember?), we do know this: if your ex is holding the mortgage on your house, maybe—just maybe—don’t ghost the payments. Because the next time you see them? It might be in court, with a sheriff ready to sell your front door out from under you.