Please list the month you stopped paying on your CC and the month of first judgment

[InDebtNeedHelp]

Please list the month you stopped paying on your CC and the month of judgment. I stopped paying on one CC late last year and another early this year. Still no judgment. I get the feeling that it will be pretty soon. Two Chase accounts. One for 11K and another for 8K. Any info would be appreciated and helpful.

[AngelinaCatHub]

You don't get a judgment just like "that". You get warning letters than a summons of suit. Then you must go to a hearing or they can get a default Judgment and you don't want a Judgment. You can maneuver and stall a bit, but when you file, that whe stay the suit procedure. Best I can tell you. 'Hub

[InDebtNeedHelp]

So I will get a letter stating that they intend to sue before they file the lawsuit?

You don't get a judgment just like "that". You get warning letters than a summons of suit. Then you must go to a hearing or they can get a default Judgment and you don't want a Judgment. You can maneuver and stall a bit, but when you file, that whe stay the suit procedure. Best I can tell you. 'Hub

[InDebtNeedHelp]

WOW! You stopped paying your mortgage last December, are still living in the house, and still have not been foreclosed on? WOW!

[GoingDown]

Out of 17 credit cards I stopped paying-- ONLY ONE has bothered to sue me. They filed a lawsuit right after charge off-- about 6 months after not paying them anything. And years later they have still not collected one penny of that judgment. Some of the other credit cards that I stopped paying are so old that they are beyond the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit. So, my point is... they don't always file a lawsuit against you for not paying. In many cases, they realize that it is not worth it to file a lawsuit against you.

[relief13035]

Can I ask why you would "gut" out the house?

[relief13035]

Like you, we "used to buy and flip houses" also. (More like "I" buy and husband "flips"). It's too much of a gamble anymore since houses aren't selling. Right now, houses within miles of me are going up in flames in the California wildfires. I'm pretty leary of real estate anymore.

[fltoo]

You don't get a judgment just like "that". You get warning letters than a summons of suit. Then you must go to a hearing or they can get a default Judgment and you don't want a Judgment. You can maneuver and stall a bit, but when you file, that whe stay the suit procedure. Best I can tell you. 'Hub

You are scaring people about judgments. Sure, they are not pretty, but they are not the end of the world. Just check out your state garnishment laws and close all bank accounts and pay with money orders.

I would never go and respond to a judgment. Why open a can of worms? They just get it by default.

To answer the OP question, I stopped paying cards and mortgage in Aug 07. Still no foreclosure with Countrywide and Chase sued me, got a judgment in Dec. 07. They sent notice that they were suing, I had 20 days to respond and did not. What I did was close all bank accounts. To date, they have collected nothing on the judgment and it will be vacated in BK when I file next year.

[allavdj]

I haven't paid on any of my cards or the balance from a car repo for about 18-24 months. I get phone calls and letters, but nothing legal yet.

[epiphany]

Stopped paying most debt July and Aug of 07 simply because I couldn't. Stopped paying almost all by Jan 08.

HBSC sued me on 4/18 of this year for around 3K and got their judgment on 7/2. I never answered the summons because my lawyer told me not to waste the money.

However, I do need to mention that this is the only creditor that I had sent a cease and desist to....that was before I retained the attorney and he told me that probably had not been a good idea, and in retrospect I truly believe that that escalated the process. I wish I had never done that, but no matter. I will have the judgment vacated shortly after my overdue discharge is confirmed.

ep

[treehugger1]

When I stopped paying varies by who was willing to work with me at the time I needed help.

Examples:

Stopped paying on several local office creditors/CA's and about a month after chargeoff, they sued in small claims court ($7500 or less.) Local office creditors included American General, United Finance, etc. I responded to many of these denying the debt and I went to local mediation (not to be confused with arbitration.) I was able to work out payment plans with all but three of these folks who pursued a judgment. Garnishment has paid all of these off with the exception of one local creditor/CA. Each time I filed a small claims response it cost me approximately $45.00. One small claims case I failed to make the hearing and they got a default judgment immediately. The judge signed off on the judgment the same day I "failed to appear." No big deal. They issued a garnishment writ and this will be paid and satisfied in two weeks.

All of these local creditors/CA's waited until approximately 180 days of nonpayment to take legal action action except one who filed small claims after 90 days.

In terms of the Big Boys, I have several national CC's that I have not paid since october - december of 2007. They have been bounced through a couple of national collection agencies and law firms. I have DV'd everyone, but as of today there has been no legal action taken. Two of these are with a law firm in a town 200 miles away. Still, I have never received a DV or summons related to legal action from the law firms. Both of these were well over 270 days after first nonpayment. I error on the side of caution and expect that they will move to suit/arbitration in the next 90 - 180 days.

I have other accounts that are just now charging off and two of these have been sent to the first line CA's (United, Allied, CACH, etc) but they have yet to provide me with written dunning letter. Once I receive the letter I will request DV and inform them they are to cease and desist telephone communications.

I'm not the biggest BAG a CA can go for. I have no assets. On the other hand, I am a high wage earner and ny wages are subject to garnishment only after I have been properly served, and choose to reply or not reply to a summons. The other thing working against my larger creditors (as is the case in many states) is that garnishment writs expire after 90 days and then must be reissued.

Overall, judgments do not bother me as I can survive 25% garnishment.

Having said all of that, there is the issue of what I will do if served a summons beyond small claims. In my state, it costs approximately $185 to answer a general civil summons. I have to make my own personal decision as to whether I will spend this amount of money to argue against a case i will probably eventually lose. If the amount they claim I owe is in line with what I believe I owe, then I'll let them get the default judgment and figure out on their own how to collect/enforce the judgment. If they claim I owe more than my records show, I'll file an answer and force everything into arbitration which qualifies for any amount under $50K in my state.

But back to the OP's post! A few of my local creditors filed small claims as soon as 90 days past due. Some Bbg national class CC's I have not paid for over ayear and I have not evern received a court summons. Since time from summons to my allowed response time is approximately 30 - 45 days, I'm looking at well over a year for any big CC to inititate a lawsuit.

Other variables that I think come into play is your location and what the creditor might know about you current financial situation. I live in a very small rural district with not-so-smart attorneys. It could take years for an out-of-area creditor/CA to find an attorney in my state to take on a case against me. If they did find an attorney in my state it is most likely to be some firm that is 100's of miles away. The cost of sending an attorney to my district and hoping to get any amount awarded by a court significantly beyond the original debt is very small.

There are too many variables that come into play when trying to determine how soon an OC/CA wil move toward lititgation. The point is that you always have the BK 7/13 card to play if things get difficult for you.

Judgments do not bother me in that I could give a sh*t about what will happen to my credit. In two years my scores have fallen from the mid to upper 700's to 390! I think that many folks are looking to minimize the cost to their almighty credit scores of not paying their debts. Guess what? Life without credit is not all bad. And, even if you have judgments and garnishments this does not necessarily imply you will not be advanced credit.

So how long until you are sued and a possible judgment is awarded? I woul say 90 days to never. How much do you care? And, why do you care?

[InDebtNeedHelp]

"So how long until you are sued and a possible judgment is awarded? I would say 90 days to never. How much do you care? And, why do you care?"

I can't afford any wage garnishment, and I want to make sure that I am fully prepared to file Chapter 7 BK as soon as I am sued. Also, I am having serious issues with my heart. I am trying to minimize stress by staying as informed and prepared as possible.

[ssdsco]

18 months since last payment on about 20 cards/loc's. No summons yet. Just got a letter they're foreclosing on my MD house on the 2nd mortgage. Nothing on the 1st yet. Looks like I could have lived there about 2 years rent free. I've sent 30-40 letters to CA's, Law Office of.....DVing, don't call, and I'm judgment execution proof. I've gotten a DV response for about 25% of the letters consisting of old statements. At this point I send out 1-2 new letters a month as the debts move around. I've never talked to an OC or CA. With a couple exceptions all phone calls stopped when they received my letter. Now I only get calls when the debt transfers.....time to send another letter. You may not want to DV if you want the statements to get lost in the shuffle from collector to collector.

I did get summons from an out of state court for a small debt that's not CC/loc debt. I sent the attorney suing me a letter saying I wanted the opportunity to attend the hearing so move the lawsuit to my current state of residence. Still waiting on response. Probably just gave the attorney a big laugh. We’ll see.

From my understanding if you do get a summons and you owe the debt the only reason you might want to respond to the summons is if you're filing BK in a few months and you want to avoid having a judgment on you credit record or getting an associated lien. Liens are not a concern for me because they impair a BK exemption so I can get it removed by paying additional attorney fees. You may be able to delay the judgment a few months by attending the hearing and stating you don't understand the amount you’re being sued for and while that‘s getting worked through file BK before you get the judgement.

Due to all the false threats and BS from the collection companies the only accurate way to know if you're being sued is when the summons is served. I have a couple lawsuits that were filed 6 months ago and I've never been served. The CA sends me a copy of the court document via regular mail every now and then. It would probably scare the hell out of the average person. At this point it’s just a scare tactic. I do have the ability to see what lawsuits are filed and the status of lawsuits via the county clerks online database.

I’m starting to wonder if I should even file BK. I have the house (and mortgage) I plan on living in through rest of my retired life. I don’t need credit. A decent credit score could be important for insurance purposes but that hasn’t been a problem yet. It would bring closure to my debt mess and start rebuilding my credit for unforeseen credit/credit score needs.

Take care of your heart !!.

[debtfreedom]

advice please

So, I am reading this information and it sounds like most people have at least 6 months to a year + before they are sued and deal with wage garnishment.

We just in October (last month) were unable to pay our credit card payments for the first time ever. We have about 120k in c.c. debt, from some past mistakes. We are moving to Alaska at the first of January because my husband works up there and we will be losing our home and my income in this economy has went to basically nothing (work mainly on commission sales). I won't have a job in Alaska, so will try to work some odd jobs to help make ends meet. Without my income in Alaska we will qualify for Chapter 7. Without our home, we really do not have any assets.

We had a car lease that I was unable to continue to pay starting in Sept (08) and gave back to them in Oct. They just sent me a letter stating that I need to pay the past due payment from payments due in Sept/Oct and then they are going to sell it and send me a final bill. My lease wasn't up until Dec 2009. Should I send them a small payment, say $100, to stall them. That is really all I can afford at this time, on top of it all moving is going to be expensive. The car lease is only in my name, even though we are married, so if I don't have a job not sure if they could still garnish my husband's wages?

I am concerned though about being sued and having wage garnishment. First of all, my husband would be mortified with his co-workers and employer knowing about it - they are all very close. Secondly, if we had 25% garnishment, we wouldn't probably be able to eat. What if multiple cards sue you, can there only be 25% wage garnishment total and then they split it up or how does that work?

Can anyone give me thoughts feedback if we have to wait until July 2009 to file because we have to wait 6 months for my one last commission check to fall off that I get in December, how likely will it be that we will face wage garnishment and what are some steps we can do to try and stall this from happening. The phone has already started ringing off the hook.

I REALLY APPRECIATE ANY HELP!!! This is just such a stressful time and want to make sure we can do all we can to make it go as smooth as possible and have the least amount of stress as we can. Already can't sleep and feel like crying on a regular basis. I feel so emotional going through this that even a sad TV commercial sets me off with tears.

[GoingDown]

If you don't live in a community property state and the debt is in your name only (if your husband didn't co-sign), then they can't garnish his wages for your debt.



Everyone is so worried about wage garnishment.

Remember, first they have to sue you which might never happen.

And wage garnishment is 25% of wages after taxes and various other things are taken out of your paycheck. And in many cases you can get the judge to order less than 25%, if you can prove undue hardship.

And if you can't spare 25% of your paycheck without going under, you really do need to get your finances in order, or else even bankruptcy will just be a short term fix for you.