Expert: Creditwrench - 5/1/2008

Question
I have a law firm saying if I dont set up payments they will file a judgement. Besides the credit report what else will it effect? Can they place a lien on my home or take personal property? Is there anything I can do beside pay on there terms?

Answer
They can place a lien on your home if they get a judgment. What they might be able to take in the way of personal property depends on both federal and state garnishment law.

Is there anything you can do besides pay? Yes, there is a lot of things you can do. The first is to learn your rights under the law. Learn what ways they can violate federal and state law in their efforts to collect and when they violate take them to federal court.

For instance, their initial communication letter should be answered within 30 days. Your answer should be in the form of a validation demand/denial of debt. This can be extremely important in providing you with a cause of action in federal court.

You need to keep careful records of all phone calls. Time, date and a written diary of what was said on each call. Lawyers are 3rd party debt collectors and are subject to the mandates of the fair debt collection practices act.

You should learn your federal and state as well as local rules of civil procedure and rules of evidence. You can't possibly remember them all because there are far too many but you can at least be somewhat familiar with them.
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You should at least go visit your local law library so that if and when you need to go look something up you will know where it is and it's hours of operation. If you live in a large city that has more than one law library you should at least go be familiar with all of them to see which one is closest to you and which one you like best.

For instance, we have several here in Oklahoma City. One at the state capital and we have several law schools and all of them have law libraries. If you take the time to go visit at least two or three of them for a few minutes you will quickly learn which one you want to use and that can save you a lot of valuable time when push comes to shove.