Hi,

My fiancé had a car repossessed about 20 years ago in NJ. He was homeless in NY by the time it was taken and never received a summons or complaint. After they resold the car they felt he still owed about $5000 on it and now the judgment says he owes about another $5000 in interest.

This has been turned over to a collection agency/law firm that will not settle with us (we offered a little more than half the total). They have gone to court to revive the judgment and garnish his wages while we were trying to settle this with them. Days before the court revived the judgment they sent us a questionnaire to list accounts and assets with 2 weeks to return it. We sent it back the next day but just a few days later it seems the judgment was revived (maybe the court didn't need the questionnaire to do that?). The agency has a number of horrible reviews online about how they deal with people... they will not even talk to us on the phone and say we have to go through our lawyer (a bankruptcy lawyer we consulted years ago while considering a bankruptcy we didn't go through with).

My fiancé went to the dealer. They said they would gladly settle the issue for the amount we offered (it's been 20 years, they were happy to hear from us) but could not find a record of him in their system. Again we have been using a bankruptcy attorney to help us with this but he doesn't seem to be very on the ball. The judgment was revived on October 18th, the court said we had to be issued order of this in 7 days... the collection agency sent it to our lawyer 10 days later and it seems we just got it yesterday from them (November 13th). Is that even legal?

So we want to fight all this. He doesn't want to not pay what he owes, as he can, but we don't want to have to deal with these vultures either. The settlement amount we offered was a family member's loan as I currently unemployed...

So I've been looking online and these are my three questions:

First, Can't we get the judgment vacated due to improper service? I'm not sure how it works in NJ, looking for that info but he was homeless and surely wasn't contacted.

Second, If this collection agency says they are representing the plaintiff, the car dealership, and we give them the settlement amount, can't they issue an order to vacate? I assume this collection agency bought the debt but if they say they are representing the plaintiff and the plaintiff is paid... could that work?

Third, Does anyone know of any free law advice I could get to help me with this? I was thinking of just going to the courthouse and seeing what info I can get from the clerks and take it from there...

Thanks in advance!

You can try to get the judgment vacated on improper service but I doubt if it will fly. First, he was obviously aware that the car was repossessed so it probable that he knew he would be sued. And 20 yrs is a long time to claim you know you weren't served.

If the collection agency owns the debt then the dealer has no more say in the matter. They can still be listing the plaintiff as the dealer even though they own the debt. You can ask the court to force them to provide such a statement of ownership.

Try a local law school, they sometimes have clinics that can help with such things.

Thanks Scott. Do you think he'll have to pay this debt in full, no matter what we do? We don't have the money to pay it in one lump sum and we're trying to avoid this destroying the credit he's trying to build. This is the only thing out there to settle. I'm not sure if we should try another settlement with these people after reading about them and I'm guessing they won't take it... I'll look into the law school clinic... open to any ideas, thanks again.

If they feel they can collect the full amount through garnishment, they are unlikely to accept a settlement unless it a lump sum.