Civil Judgment against my relative

All legal judgments are recorded at the County clerk's office. Your relative needs to visit the office and get the complete details regarding the judgment. The details of the creditors can be available at the office.

If this judgment is in legal shape, Sears has the rights to take further actions against your relative as decided by the court. It will be better for you to contact them and arrange a payoff. Try to give these payments a priority so that she is away from any legal actions that might take place against her.

The funny thing is this account is approx 10 years old. Isnt this past the limitations?

Judgments have a longer SOL timeframe, sometimes up to 20 years. If your creditors have filed for judgment before the expiry of SOL, the statutes time period of the judgments will be calculated.

John, thanks for the info. She called today and left a message for someone to call her back. I guess i am confused, if she hasn't been served anything on this from the court and she has no personal property (ex. House, car) then do you have any idea what will happen. Will they try and get the incomes taxes? Its been 3 months and she hasn't received anything. I would think they someone would have sent her something. She is worried and im just trying to help her out, the people on here are very helpful and i just wanted to get your thoughts thanks!

You can expect some more suggestions from others but presently I can think of contacting the local clerk at the country office. The lawyer will decide how much needs to be paid in legal terms. This decision will be taken only after analyzing the monthly income and cutting off all the necessary expenses.

I am doing some more research on this avenue and perhaps come up with more ideas.

Thanks john. If she never pulled her credit report would anything have ever been done? Just kinda floors me how no one has contacted her.

If there had been a hearing date, the creditor would have got Order for Examination of Judgment Debtor, your relative would have surely received a legal notice of it. If she failed to appear by chance or even after knowing it, she would have again received a court paper of Order to Show Cause. This is the hearing that should have the date and time fixed by the small claims clerk. Remember, the Order to Show Cause must be served by the Marshal or Special Process Server personally to the defendant. So the matter has not reached so far as your relative never received any legal notice.

Very interesting, my sister just called me and this account was paid. She didn't realize that this had already been paid through an attorney (she didn't realize that this was the same account). A couple of years to it was filed through the courts and last Feb (2005) it was paid. All payments were sent through an attorney and she has the paperwork showing that it has been paid in full (THANK GOD!). She also has the paperwork from the courts showing that the case is closed and the claim has been paid.

Do you have any idea why the credit report would show date opened 10/19/05? Maybe just an oversight? She has the paperwork that she can fax to whomever.

What a relief! Makes me feel better because she has had her debt problems and she is in the process of getting everything back on track.

Thanks again for all your help!

OMG!! This is a relief to me as well!! I can imagine the hard work you people had been doing in between the posting times.

Accurate negative information will stay on the CR for a period of seven years from the date of reporting. It cannot be removed before the allotted time period.

Hi, I didn't want to start a new thread for basically the same subject. My son 27, who is single, still living at home and currently unemployed (once again) has a judgement on his credit report. We found it last year when we pulled his free report. Its from around 1997 (can't remember the year right now) but it was from when him, and three others had an appartment together. Long story short, son was the only one working in the end, other three quit and stayed at home while son worked two jobs. Son couldn't keep up with rent and utilities by himself. got evicted and there were damages in the apartment. so he owed back rent, damages, and breach of contract for leaving early. Landlord said he owed her $10,000 and she was going to take him to court. Not sure how she came up with that amount of money. Son moved back in with me and has always put my address and phone number as his point of contact and home address. We never heard anything else about this. until we saw it on the report last year. If I'm not mistaken, the judgement is for $5000.

I guess they would say they tried to contact him but couldn't find him so went on with court proceedings. But even after court, we never heard anything. My son has worked since then. Obviously they didn't rule garnishment? he doesn't have a bank account. Seems that when he works, his #SSN would put up a flag???? and this would tell them who his employeer was?
I don't understand this or why they haven't tried to garnish when he was working, or why we never received anything in the mail about it. Is it just going to stay on report and go away after time? what are they waiting to happen?

I mean, I've never heard of this before. thanks, shirley

My sister did some calling around (I was on the other line) and she called the court house and they showed this case as satisfied and that I would need to talk to the creditor to get the credit report updated. She then called the creditor and they told her the court house would update the credit report. Called the court house back and they said they don't do it. Called the creditor again and then they told her that she needs to send a copy of the judgment satisfied paper from the court and sent to the the credit report agency to get it updated/removed. Just getting the run around. At least we know its been paid and the creditor even shows paid in full. What a mess!

Shirley,

It is true that your son should have received the court papers in his mailbox for the first hearing. If he failed to do so, the landlord should have filed an Order for Examination of Judgment Debtor and Order to Show Cause on his regular failures to appear at the court. The latter is served personally by the Marshal or Special Process Server to the defendant. I guess the landlord didn't take the matter to this point. That is the reason no actions took place against your son or perhaps the debt might have been paid by some other sources.

Since judgment is negative information, it will stay in the credit report as per the FCRA laws. If possible, ask your son to visit the local County Clerk where this judgment was filed. Perhaps, he will get the latest standing of his judgment.