Judgements and Leins

[Ineedhelp2]

What are the chances a credit card company will get a judgement and lein against a home? Has this happened to anyone here?

[Princesskina]

Ummmm if u dont own the home dont plan on staying if trying to file chp. 7 but ummmm thats an Asset and depending on Value location etc. Ummm I feel u my have to give it up.

[Bobby'sGirl]

Toss of the coin!

My lawyer said the one credit card I had over $30,000 from business debts would probably charge off, but once picked up by a collection firm then I should worry. They might go after my wages and/or home. That made my decision to file BK. If I owned no home or owned it jointly, and only had social security and self employment, then maybe no worries, but I didn't want to be worrying about the wolves showing up at the door over the next several years. I am about a year since last payment on that card, it is a charge off with MBNA and is now with a collections company, so I am filing this month.

Added info: I will be ready to sell the house in two years when my daughters are done with college, so having a lien sucking off part of my profits above an exempted amount would, ahem, suck.

[miss puff]

They can come after your home with CC debt? hmmm... I did not know this. Does it have to be secured by your home or something? Sorry, I don't know the answer to this Inneed. I am learning new things every day though and would like to know the answer to this as well.

[lrprn]

If a creditor gets a money judgment against you, he can file a lien against your real property. "Real property" means real estate including your house, a condominium or any other land that you own. When a creditor places a lien on your real property, your creditor must get paid when you sell or refinance it or when you die and it changes ownership as a part of your estate.

Here's a story about a real scumbag collector in Arizona who has been putting liens on homes to force people to pay off credit debt that they don't even owe - totally fradulent - http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...fraud0222.html

[Ineedhelp2]

In the real world, how often does it happen.

My highest cc debt is about $11,000.

There must be a reason they don't automatically get a judgement. Is it very costly to do so?

[lrprn]

In the real world, how often does it happen.

My highest cc debt is about $11,000.

There must be a reason they don't automatically get a judgement. Is it very costly to do so?

It is quite costly to get a judgment against you. The creditor has to anticipate getting an excellent return on their investment to make them head to court to get the judgment against you in the first place. Then they have to decide to go back to court to try to get a lien against your property (not a given by any means). That all costs money, lots of it.

Our highest credit card was over $12,000. We stopped paying on our cards for four months before we filed, and we barely got to collections on just a couple of them, let alone all the way to court for a judgment. The chances of having one of your creditors try to put a lien on your house for repayment of $11K is so small it might as well not exist.

[GoingDown]

In the real world, how often does it happen.

My highest cc debt is about $11,000.

There must be a reason they don't automatically get a judgement. Is it very costly to do so?

Some creditors, such as Unifund, will file a lawsuit on debts as low as $200. They buy huge junk debt portfolios and then sue thousands of people with charged off debts all at the same time. It's a shotgun approach. They just hope that a fraction of the people they sue will end up having some nice wages to garnish or some big juicy assets to take.

But most won't sue you unless they think that they can get something from you. They look to see if you are employed and if you live in a state where they can garnish wages and they look to see if you have major assets like a house and cars, etc.

Depending on your situation, you might consider selling your house before they get a judgment against you and then downsizing to a smaller house (one that is worth LESS than the homestead exemption for your state) or even just renting a house for awhile.

Go see several BK attorneys and tell them about your situation before deciding to file or not. Depending on how much the homestead exemption is for your state, you might end up losing your house during the bankruptcy proceedings, if its equity exceeds the exemption amount.

[CindyLou]

i went 4 years before filing and never had a judgement. i had two cards are high as 18000....on the flip side my brother has two judgements for debts less than 1000 after only 1 year of non payment...go figure!! he lives in small town louisiana and i live in los angeles. thats probably the difference....the ease of filing for the company.

[no_it_all]

It is quite costly to get a judgment against you<huge snip>

Well, that depends...For example, to start a suit, all a creditor has to do is serve you with a Notice of Summons. You generally have twenty days to respond. Ignore it and the creditor then goes to the Clerk of the Court and pays the 2 or 3 hundred dollar fee, obtains a docket number and also puts in a motion for a Summary Judgement (since you did not respond to the Summons). This whole process cost maybe 5 hundred bucks, which includes the Process Server fees. It isn't all that costly.

If you do get served, it is most important to respond in a timely manner. Why? Because if you do, you have shown the Creditor that you <might> be fighting the suit. Now, THAT cost money, so maybe that is when they will back off. Remember, to start a suit, all a creditor (if your state follows the Federal Laws of Civil Procedure, and many do) is grab a free copy of a Notice of Summons from the Court house and have it served. If you don't fight back, THEN they will pay the fees to get it on the docket. If you do fight back and the creditor backs off, they are only out the hundred bucks it cost to get you served and the fifty bucks for having a para-legal fill out the Notice of Summons..

If you are working and have a steady income, AND your state allows wage garnishments, then it may be worth while for a credit card company or collections agency to bring a suit (or at least fish for one)..

[GoingDown]

Well, that depends...For example, to start a suit, all a creditor has to do is serve you with a Notice of Summons. You generally have twenty days to respond. Ignore it and the creditor then goes to the Clerk of the Court and pays the 2 or 3 hundred dollar fee, obtains a docket number and also puts in a motion for a Summary Judgement (since you did not respond to the Summons). This whole process cost maybe 5 hundred bucks, which includes the Process Server fees. It isn't all that costly.

If you do get served, it is most important to respond in a timely manner. Why? Because if you do, you have shown the Creditor that you <might> be fighting the suit. Now, THAT cost money, so maybe that is when they will back off. Remember, to start a suit, all a creditor (if your state follows the Federal Laws of Civil Procedure, and many do) is grab a free copy of a Notice of Summons from the Court house and have it served. If you don't fight back, THEN they will pay the fees to get it on the docket. If you do fight back and the creditor backs off, they are only out the hundred bucks it cost to get you served and the fifty bucks for having a para-legal fill out the Notice of Summons..

If you are working and have a steady income, AND your state allows wage garnishments, then it may be worth while for a credit card company or collections agency to bring a suit (or at least fish for one)..

This is exactly what they look for. As soon as the original creditor charges off the account and sends it to a third party collection agency, one of the first things they do is start trying to find out where you work by looking at your credit report and then calling them to try to verify if you still work there or not. Once they verify that, you go to the top of their list and they start hounding you for payments. If you don't respond or respond negatively, they see you as an excellent candidate for a lawsuit and then wage garnishment.

In most states they can also do a quick, free little search on the internet using your state's or your county's property ownership database to find out if you own any real estate. It's very easy to look up. I did it on myself and found out that I don't have any real estate. I also looked at my credit reports and only my old, outdated previous employers are listed. I've even heard from some of my co-workers that people have been calling them at work asking to speak with me. Ha, ha! Suckers! I don't work there anymore! Try to garnish that!

Here's how easy it is to look up property records on individuals in Arizona...

http://www.maricopa.gov/assessor/ParcelApplication/Default.aspx