Why You Should Not Allow a Creditor to Get a Default Judgment against You

Posted by on March 26, 2016 under Bankruptcy Blog | Be the First to Comment

Not responding to a lawsuit by a creditor can harm you in more ways than you think.

 

Three Different Sets of Reasons

Judgments can harm you in three distinct ways:

1) Give the creditor powerful collection tools against you to collect the debt.

2) Force you into filing bankruptcy when it’s not to your best advantage.

3) Makes it harder sometimes to discharge (write off) the debt later in bankruptcy.

Today’s blog addresses the first one of these. The other two will be covered in my next blogs.

The Temptation to Let a Lawsuit Turn into a Default Judgment

Most lawsuits filed by creditors and collection agencies to collect debts result in judgments against the people being sued. That’s because the main allegations in most of these lawsuits simple argue that the debt at issue is legally owed. And that’s usually not in dispute. So the people being sued understandably figure that there’s no point in responding to allegations that appear to be true.

Practically speaking, most of the time the people being sued are at the end of their financial rope. So they believe that they can’t afford to hire an attorney to find out what their options are, or the consequences of doing nothing.

What ARE the Consequences of Doing Nothing?

You may know that a judgment gives a creditor the right to garnish your wages and bank accounts. You may believe that you can prevent such garnishments from happening to you by keeping your money out of bank accounts and by being paid other than a regular wage or salary (although even those are not practical options for most people).  Perhaps, but the “judgment creditor” usually has other rights against you once it gets that judgment.

The laws differ state by state, but generally a judgment becomes a lien against any real estate you own, or will own in the future. Depending on the facts and applicable law, the creditor may then be able to foreclose on that real estate to get its debt paid. Think about not only property under only your own name, but also your rights to property held jointly with a spouse, parent, or through a trust or estate.

An aggressive creditor usually has other tools available. In most states it can get a judge to order you to go to court to answer questions under oath about what you own so that the creditor can find out what it can take from you. The creditor may be able to get a court order sending a sheriff’s deputy to your home or business to seize some of your possessions for payment of the debt. If someone owes you any money (or anything else), that person can be ordered to pay that debt to the creditor instead of to you.

Similarly, if you own a business, the creditor can force your customers to pay it instead of you. This can be devastating both to your cash flow and to your business reputation. Your business could even be subjected to a “till tap”: a sheriff’s deputy arriving at your place of business to take money directly out of the cash register to pay towards the judgment debt.

Will These Happen to You?

We don’t want to give the impression that these kinds of aggressive collection procedures are used in most cases, or will necessarily be used in yours. Some of these are unusual, taking a fair amount of extra work and fees for the creditor or its attorney, and so likely won’t happen in most simple collection cases. The point is that once creditors have a judgment against you, they have many powerful options against you. We meet all the time with distressed new clients who have been shocked at how creditors with judgments against them have been able to financially hurt them.

Why See an Attorney If You Have No Defense to the Debt?

Flying blind is scary and dangerous. Getting sued and not knowing the potential consequences of just letting the creditor win is like flying blind. Besides potentially finding out about possible defenses to the lawsuit, consulting an attorney gives you the opportunity to consider your broader financial situation, and your options for addressing it. A lawsuit by a creditor is usually a symptom of a broader problem. By consulting with a knowledgeable attorney, you may learn about potential solutions to both the lawsuit AND the rest of your financial problems.

 

Please visit our website again for the next two blogs about the other very important reasons why you should not allow a creditor to take a default judgment against you.