HELP!! Creditor won Judgement trying to hold us in Contempt

[queenbee]

Our old Landlord won a Judgment and then husband filed CH7 BK...well on the financial disclosure forms I left our address off because we have a po box where all our mail goes and provided them with that...Well, hubbys bk was filed 3/30 and Creditor petitioned court 3/31 for our address...I have already contacted atty...so now the creditor is trying to hold us in contempt of court for not giving our address, we rent,hubby lost job, no assets etc...what is their issue? We have a Privacy Protection on file because of my hubby's crazy ex and I am very uncomfortable giving our address out...I have told the judge this in writing and when in court with them and refused to give out our address...my guess is they are gonna call our new landlord...so what do we do???!!? This is insane they are just pissed they are not going to get any money and we have 6 kids that is another reason I don't give our address out...Thanks for any input!

[BigJohn]

Hopefully your attorney will handle this matter

[queenbee]

lol ya right ...he said ignore it...post bk filing i said no judge sent me the letter

[2Bshinyandnew]

Our old Landlord won a Judgment and then husband filed CH7 BK...well on the financial disclosure forms I left our address off because we have a po box where all our mail goes and provided them with that...Well, hubbys bk was filed 3/30 and Creditor petitioned court 3/31 for our address...I have already contacted atty...so now the creditor is trying to hold us in contempt of court for not giving our address, we rent,hubby lost job, no assets etc...what is their issue? We have a Privacy Protection on file because of my hubby's crazy ex and I am very uncomfortable giving our address out...I have told the judge this in writing and when in court with them and refused to give out our address...my guess is they are gonna call our new landlord...so what do we do???!!? This is insane they are just pissed they are not going to get any money and we have 6 kids that is another reason I don't give our address out...Thanks for any input!

Only a judge can hold you in contempt of court, not a creditor. A creditor can file a motion to compel if they feel missing information is relevant to the case. The judge then decides.

If you filed a bankruptcy on 3/30 you are protected from any further collection activity pending the resolution of your bankruptcy case. Fax/mail your bankruptcy case # to this landlord. You mention that you "contacted atty". Was this your BK attorney? Did you file BK pro-se?

[queenbee]

I contacted the BK atty...they have all the BK info per the atty..the judge and creditor...we had a garnishment hearing that was can canceled because of the bk filing.....I guess I just don't understand WHY we would have to give our address?! It shouldn't matter tot hem where we live since we don't own and I think if we don't want to give someone our address we should not have to! The judge sent me a letter (that I replied to) saying that because we did not fill in our address we are in contempt of court and strongly suggested I give it to them A.S.A.P. ...I called the atty and he said ignore it, it is post BK filing but I did respond to the judge so he can hold us in contempt hopefully he won't...because again I am not giving them my address...I told the creditor in a letter I sent to them to contact the atty..

[BigJohn]

Which court oversedes the other - a local court or a Federal court? It sounds like the characters behind the judgment want to harrass you no end and are trying to use the local judge as a part of the ploy. You should be okay but watch out for the back stabbers.

[queenbee]

I agree and that's what I thought and they are doing a round about way to harass us, and trying to do it "legally", like I said I think they are pissed because they are not going to get paid, and as I pointed out to the judge why NOW do they want our address, it took them a month to discover I dd not put it on there? Are you kidding me?! I don't know I guess my main question is do you HAVE to give your address out and if so why?! Is is not MY right to choose who does or doesn't have it?! Which no one does we use our p o box...

[dingdong]

Just a thought. Not trying to side with the LL at all. (If you read my other posts, you will know I have quite a bit of angst towards my former weenie head LL!) Didn't you have to include your address on your petitions? I know that it asks for your previous addresses for I believe the last two years. So I kinda think this information is available to the LL in your petitions as public record. IF they do get nasty with you, and you did include your address on the petitions, perhaps you can say to the court that you assumed they had the correct address when they were notified by the BK court of your filing.

Sort of a roundabout way of saying, you have provided the info, or the creditor had it cause they were notified by a Federal Court of your filing. It will kill two birds with one stone- once again affirm to the local court that you are in BK and that the LL was noticed and your address provided.

Maybe that will shut the LL up once and for all! ( Here's hopin'!)

[queenbee]

Lol... it did not, the judge said we were in contempt and I HAD to provide it immediately, so I did... I left a voice mail for them and told then to look it up in the phone book ...heard nothing so they must have looked it up...NOW we have another creditor saying they are going to hold my husband in contempt and try to file a lawsuit...can we say DUMBASS they atty is on this one ...they are not judgment proof and willingly harassing us so ya they are looking at about $11,000 + in fines lol stupid people!!

[queenbee]

you DID read correctly and I tried that whole big judge little judge thing ya i think that just made the judge REALLY mad..and I ended up calling and giving our address as "COURT ORDERED" lol whatever...this 2nd one the atty is going to take to court because they started AFTER the BK filing and AFTER they received the notice...otherwise no clue...so we shall see

[BigJohn]

Well what is interesting here is the fact that the case (if I understand what your saying correctly) in a local court the judge wants to hold you in contempt for not providing your address. But once you file BK that case is no longer a valid case and that lower court judge has no case to rule on. Its is in a period of a stay. If your attorney said ignore it, I would the lower court judge had no authority.

And if what I read is what I just talked about is what is happening again, another reason to just let thing go to a default judgment if your going to be filing soon.

Anyways, your case should be dismissed if you supply the judge with your BK filing papers, since there is no case and he cannot rule or proceed with a case that is in active BK. Otherwise I would make a motion to seal and suppress the information so the judge is the only one who can read it. Request the information be sealed by the court.

Went to my lawyer's office and according to them, it apears this type of 'stuff' is going on all the time. Too many people filing bankruptcy has overtaxed the system which is allowing some to severely abuse the system.

[queenbee]

or they just don't know the laws...the lower court judges or they think we are stupid and see what they can get away with...who knows...but yes it is ...they fall through the cracks so to speak

[queenbee]

the creditors are abusing the system and the lower judges here in our county have NO clue what is going on...our hearing was not dismissed, (garnishment hearing) was "canceled", they ONLY way for us to go after a creditor for harassment or disobeying the "automatic stay" is to pay $2000 MORE in atty costs...ya right we don't have that kind of money, so there is NOTHING we can do which sucks!!

[queenbee]

no the creditor with the garnishment is not the issue anymore...the new creditor is...the atty said $2000 to go after the new one that is harassing us...?! We have 5 kids and no way can we pay $2000 my husband is laid off...so we will do nothing and just keep documenting the harassment I guess...maybe a no contact order?!?! who knows

[BigJohn]

Without an attorney, you can be at the mercy of the court. These characters know that and that is why they do what they do.

Too much of this stuff is going on right now and I really don't see an end to it.