renewed judgment with MacDowell & Associates

[doremient]

My jurisdiction is: current state TN; debt state CA

I was hoping to get a little bit of advice here.

I had a vehicle financed through Ford Motor Credit in 1993. My vehicle was totaled in the same year. Unfortunately, I did not have insurance at the time. So, the vehicle was sold for parts and then I believe it was considered a repo.

A judgment was issued on 6/7/96 in the total amount of $8107.33

I was unaware of the judgment until about 2000. At that time, MacDowell & assc tried to garnish my wages. That is how I found out about the judgment.
I was no longer in California and lost contact with them.

In 2006 I filed a ch 13 bk and they popped up again. I did a voluntary dismissal of my BK in 2008.

I just received a letter in the mail stating their "client" prevailed in a lawsuit against me and they are going to be enforcing the judgment.
The letter states that if I don't contact them then they will work to have the judgment domesticated and can have wages garnished, property liens etc...

I went to the county site to search for the court records and noticed that they did a renewal of judgment on 9/28/2005 for 15k now which includes 7k in interest i am assuming from the original judgment.


Ok, now my questions....
1. What are my rights?
2. Does the statute of limitations apply?
3. Should I contact an attorney to help me with this? If so do I find one in TN or CA?
4. Can they just keep renewing the judgment indefinitely? I never received a notice of renewal or anything like that.
I've read online where other people have had issues with this firm so I am concerned about the dealings.

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

1) I don't know. I can only answer specific questions. I don't have the paperwork or know if or how the bankruptcy might affect these prior debts.
2) The Statute of Limitations would apply to their ability to collect on the judgment. We're now talking about anywhere from 10 to 20 years to collect, probably closer to the latter.
3) What will an attorney do for you?
4) There isn't an easy way you can just ignore a judgment long enough and then not have to pay it. Many people believe this is the case. If it were that easy, society would be in chaos.

Regarding the "issues" with the firm, there usually is a great deal of anger since the company is trying to collect money on a loan that was never paid back. I'm sure you can understand that the creditor, out the money, couldn't have been too happy either.

Good luck to you but I can't give you any more advice other than "deal with it best you can" and perhaps you might be able to negotiate a settlement in full for well below what the debt is actually worth.

 

[Emmitt_Otter]

to doremient about judgment

to doremient: call me I want to talk to you about the Ford judgement 6193477180