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Expert: Creditwrench - 10/5/2008


Question
Hello, I have till tomorrow to answer a summons. I owe $1,761 plus $352 lawyers fee. I have no idea what this means or what to do. Please help. I got fired from my job I'm collecting unemployment that will run out in two months, I'm more then willing to pay around $25.00 a month. I have called the lawyer they have not called me back. Should I try to call them again? How do I plead? I own a home can they take that away? What will happen next? What should I do?? Thank You

Answer

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You say that you have until tomorrow to answer a summons but you may actually have until Tuesday to do so. Never count the day upon which you were served. If you look at the summons it should tell you that but many folks overlook that fact. Have You?

Surely you don't expect me to tell you how to respond to the complaint here in open forum? I can't do that. I can tell you that you will need to prepare your response and a certificate of mailing. I can tell you that you will need two or 3 copies of your response because the clerk of the court will need two so they can be stamped by the clerk of the court, one of which will be handed back to you so you can mail it to the plaintiff's attorney by certified mail return receipt requested.

You will need to go to the post office first and get you a few of the certified mail forms because you will need them in the future. The numbers from the one you will use to send to the attorney should be typed into the certificate of mailing so you will want to have them on hand ready to go.

I can tell you that it would behoove you to download, install and use a program called "open office" instead of Microsoft Word or other program because of it's ease of use. Open Office is free and you can Google for it and download it. Open Office has all the things in it that the suite of Microsoft Office tools has. You will have to register it but again, it is free. There is another company producing what they call open office but it isn't free so if they want you to pay then you have the wrong set of open office tools.

While you may be more than willing to pay $25 a month, the only way you would get away with that is if you get a new job and and it only pays you about $625 a month. If it pays more than that they can take up to 25 percent of your take home pay. I'm sure that almost any job you get will pay you more than that. So if you plan on getting a decent job you paying somewhere around $1800 or more a month you can plan on paying out a lot more than any $25.00 a month.  

The lawyer hasn't called you back because he probably has noting to say to you at this point. You shouldn't call him back either. No, they can't take your home or your only vehicle.

What will happen next? That's up to you. If you do nothing they will get a default judgment and then go for garnishment and 25% of your wages when you get a job. So you either let that happen or quit thinking about what you are willing to pay them and learn to fight back effectively. One of my students went to court here in Oklahoma City over a mortgage foreclosure. Had they not gone and fought it they would have lost their home. They knew what to demand and when the lawyer couldn't produce it the judge suggested that they go into a conference room and try to work it out. They did that and got the workout process started but in the process they got their first FDCPA violation which they will use in federal court if they can't get it worked out. By the time they get back to court to report to the Judge on the progress of the workout in November they will probably have several more violations to use against them. It may take a long time, maybe a couple of years or more to get it all worked out but in the end they will do that and may even end up getting their home for free as another one of my students did about a month ago. He had been fighting the lender ever since 2005 and they just gave up and let him have his home for free. It would have cost them more to defend than it would have just to give him his property and forget about it.

You see, I know how to win and I teach my students how to win.

How do you plead? You might want to try a denial as your response then follow that up with interrogatories, demand for admissions and production of documents. Send them all to the plaintiff's attorney at the same time. Maybe you have other defenses such as statute of limitations. I don't know about that since I don't have all the facts in the case or even know what state you are in so I can't possibly tell you how to plead.  

Creditwrench

Expertise

Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.

Experience

I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.

Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.

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