Just got served...

[LookingAhead]

I got in the shower tonight and right after there was a knock at the door...hubby answered it...I got served. Lovely...

They want me in court at 9am on 7-29-10.


Hubby took a promotion at work a few months ago, that left him with a pay cut (nice, eh) and my job is in education, so my hours were drastically cut for the summer and it's unknown if I will have a job come next month. All I know at the moment is I have 4 hours to work next month. Praying I will be working 20 hours a week starting mid August though when school starts up again and we will be better off $ wise again. So...we haven't payed out laywer in a while trying to budget things this past couple months and get caught up on house, car, power, etc and continue learning to live without credit cards. I have still been paying our medical bills as well as we are still using the doctors I am paying, so we have to (just $25 a month to each). Most of the phone calls have stopped coming in except for once every few days or so. I have our ringer off, but turn it on once in a while or see it light up when a call comes in and answer and tell them we are still filing for bk - everyone has been nice and understanding. I was keeping track of everyone we had notified at first, but ten quit - there's a lot - but I thought we had everyone covered. I'm not sure how much longer it will be until we can get him paid off?

We have retained our lawyer (I can't remember the exact date - I think it may be in my siggy though) and paid a little more than the retainer fee, but still owe like $500 maybe? Need to go over the exact amount with him again as we owe extra for having to many credit cards and keeping our car and house so the $#s cange a bit.

So...what do I do about going to court? I know it's been about 6 months without paying credit cards, but I guess I was stupid about taking to long to finish filing the bk and didn't expect to get served yet since they knew we were filing and ad our laywers info and everything.

Chase/Amazon is who served me. Do I have to sow up in court? Do I contact my lawyer? What happens if I don't go? My husband is freaking out about all this again now (we are doing a joint filing). Should I expect to start getting served by others now too? HELP please!

[rmhesq2]

First, talk to the lawyer you retained. He will advise you what to do. You did not say what you were served with. Was it a lawsuit? If so, was it small claims? It sounds like small claims to me. Without knowing what you were served with it is difficult to explain what is happening. Again, your best bet is to contact your bankruptcy attorney and get the bankruptcy filed ASAP

[AngelinaCatHub]

First, talk to the lawyer you retained. He will advise you what to do. You did not say what you were served with. Was it a lawsuit? If so, was it small claims? It sounds like small claims to me. Without knowing what you were served with it is difficult to explain what is happening. Again, your best bet is to contact your bankruptcy attorney and get the bankruptcy filed ASAP

Yes I have to agree with above, as more info please. Now, if you do not answer the suit, you shall be delivered a Judgment. Please try to avoid this. To do so either file bk now, go for sure, and ask the Court for a true and accurate statement of account that you may study (in other words, stall them) and deny the charges honestly as to what they are complaining about.

As far as Hubby, he just must get used to it. This is a time of stress and we who have prevailed (we under the most poorly ignorance and mistakes) have also gone through what you and he are now. Get over it and buck up, it will be fine. In this economy you are one in a million (literally).

Please do your best to kill off a Judgment as to get it removed will cost far more. It can be done but just show. Object to anything and state you wish proof. State you wish this to be sent to your bk lawyer and give his address in Court. BUT SHOW.

Good fortune to you, and keep us posted. 'Hub

[LookingAhead]

Thank you for the replies!
I am such a dummy about all of this...I have no clue what they are - 4 papers stapled together...
Says "You are hereby summoned and required to appear before the court at....xxx.... at 9:00am on 07-29-2010, to answer the complaint in this case, a copy of which is hereto attached. IF YOU DAIL TO DO SO, A JUDGEMENT BY DEFAULT MAY BE TAKEN AFAINST YOU FOR THE RELIED ASKED IN THE COMPLAINT." It's for $4,830.76

I saw in another post that a person was served and mentioned paying over $100 when going? Did I read that wrong, or do I have to pay a fee when going?? I can't get my bk filed, I sure as heck don't want to pay the court money for this! Gah... If we hadn't had to buy a new car for DH with our tax return we could have had our lawyer paid off and avoided all this (the car was $1,800 and approved by our lawyer up to $3K).

How do I object to what they are saying? Won't they be asking if I made these charges and am responsible for them? Can't deny that... =/

I did just e-mail my lawyer too, last time he responded first thing the following morning, so hoping for a quick and good response again!

[ryan]

In IL, with Chase filing that is a small claims suit.... Probably says SR or SC in the case # ...something like 2010SR005678 for example.

Assuming it is small claims, in IL showing up is all you need to do. There is no need to file an answer -- so there is no cost. Earlier advice is good: Judge will probably ask if you agree with the amount and you may want to deny amount is correct. Just doing that will cause judge to set trial. Probably 2 - 3 months in future if you're in a big county. So, that will buy you a lot of time.

Judge may also ask if you want time to talk to plaintifs lawyer in court (out in the hall) Then plaintiff lawyer will try to get you to agree to a monthly payment on the debt. Unless you are prepared to enter into an agreement like that, I'd first ask you're atty.

[AngelinaCatHub]

No, don't enter into any agreement. That is tantamount to admitting that you owe the charge. As I stated above, ask them to verify the amount. It is not denying or admitting, only verifying the amount. Admit nothing other than you wish verification of the correct amount. You may owe it all, but are you REALLY sure they have not slipped extra charges in? You aren't so there is no perjury. At the least, ask the Judge for a 30 day continuance when you can afford to have a lawyer represent you. By that time, you will have enough money to file. 'Hub

[sofargone]

I was the one that posted about paying the $100.00 fee for going to court. On my summons it says I have to pay an appearance fee. When I looked it up on the courts website the fee is about $111.00. This will be my first time going to court so maybe (hopefully) I am reading it wrong and there is no fee. I am also in Illinois.

FYI, If you do settle with them you might receive a 1099C at the end of the year that you will have to pay taxes on. I settled with a CC and got a letter from IRS saying I owed over $3,000.00 in taxes on the amount because it was considered income. My cpa is working on it now trying to show that we were insolvent at the time the amount was dismissed so hopefully we will not be responsible for the taxes. Just so you know what you might be getting into if you decide to settle.

[sofargone]

My lawyer sent the company suing me a letter saying that they were preparing to file BK for me. Not sure what that will do. Hopefully the case will be dismissed. I can't see the CC company putting anymore money into the case if I am going to file BK.

[avmarathe3]

I had been sued by the Credit Card Co., before the court haering I filed for CH.7, within a week the CC filed to dismiss the case. You can file BK youself. It is filling out forms with the facts related to your finances, assets and debts and paying $299.00 fee.

[ryan]

I was the one that posted about paying the $100.00 fee for going to court. On my summons it says I have to pay an appearance fee. When I looked it up on the courts website the fee is about $111.00. This will be my first time going to court so maybe (hopefully) I am reading it wrong and there is no fee. I am also in Illinois.

Understood, but is your case for less than 10K?...if so its small claims (in IL) and to best of my knowledge you only need appear. Since you already have a lawyer why wouldn't you just ask him if there is an answer/appearance fee for the type of suit filed against you? (and whether you should even bother to defend against it since you are filing shortly)

I would definitely follow his/her lead in this matter. He's probably seen this a million times.

[sofargone]

Understood, but is your case for less than 10K?...if so its small claims (in IL) and to best of my knowledge you only need appear. Since you already have a lawyer why wouldn't you just ask him if there is an answer/appearance fee for the type of suit filed against you? (and whether you should even bother to defend against it since you are filing shortly)

I would definitely follow his/her lead in this matter. He's probably seen this a million times.

Yes, the suit is for small claims. My lawyer is only a BK lawyer and really didn't know if there is a fee or not. He said possibly if you have an attorney show up for you then their might be a fee but he couldn't say for sure. His advice was it doesn't matter if they get a judgement or not because it will be disolved in the BK BUT if you don't file soon they may come after bank accounts. He said it was entirely up to me. SO, I would like to show up and push it out a couple of months so I am not worried about my bank account being frozen. I am going to show up and see what happens. I'll post wether there is a fee or not.

[sofargone]

FYI.. There was not an appearance fee for small claims in Illinois. The information desk told me that was only if you have an attorney.

[ryan]

FYI.. There was not an appearance fee for small claims in Illinois. The information desk told me that was only if you have an attorney.

I believe thats what I said, twice.

[LookingAhead]

Hello:

If the bankruptcy is not filed before July 29th then it would be wise to appear and ask for a continuance. You will always get one continuance if you ask, typically a month or so. If the bankruptcy is filed during that month then you do not have to return for the second court date. If not, you need to do the same thing one more time and get another month. I know you have been making payments on our fees so just get that paperwork finished and meet with me again so we can go over it. I will be out of the office from July 23 to August 2 so either before or after that time.

At the court date you may have a chance to speak with the attorney for chase in the hallway prior to the actual court appearance, if so just tell them you are in the process of filing bankruptcy but it is not filed yet, and they will understand. if you don't get a chance to speak with them that's ok too just ask for the continuance when you get in front of the judge and you don't need to mention bankruptcy to the judge at that time.

Let me know if you have further questions, and don't worry too much it is routine to get a continuance.


This is the response I got from my attorney to the e-mail I sent him the night I first posted this. Seems easy enough, but I am still nervous! Hope this doesn't take long, I might throw up waiting, ha. I wish we could finish paying the lawyer fees and get filed already, but i haven't been working much at all (4 hours/week right now) so money is tight and I don't get a decent paycheck until the end of August... Can't wait to be done with all of this!