My husband had a $10,000 credit card debt that occurred some time before we got married. We have been married for 10 years. I did not know this when we got married, but just afterwards I found out he had bad credit. Therefore I kept our checking accounts separate and bought the house by myself (his name is not on the deed or the mortgage). We do have a money market savings account we hold jointly. He is retired and I work and pay all of the bills. Today I got a call from a debt collection lawyer saying he was going to court in two hours to get a judgement for $17,000 against my husband if we did not settle for $14,000. I told him I knew nothing about it. I looked up our state and it says online that it has a 3 year statute of limitations. Can they get a judgement? Can they take money from our joint savings account? Can they get it from my house or line of credit? Or was this lawyer's office lying to me? Should we take the money out of our savings account and put in an account that does not have his name on it? (It is mostly my money from before we were married - and was to be our retirement fund.)

He will not be able to just go get a judgment.

There has to be a hearing or trial, your husband would have to be notified of the court date.

I think he is just an over aggressive collector, who is in violation of the FDCPA if he is threatening to get a judgment without having taken the necessary legal steps to do so.

If the statute has run out on this debt, he probably purchased it from someone and is grasping at straws to try to scare you into paying it.

Really, if your husband legitimately owes this money, it would be unethical of me to tell you how to hide his money from someone he borrowed from, and promised to pay back.

I agree he should have paid it. But I'm not sure that I want to see the small savings I had before we got married go to pay this. I am sure I did not like that lawyer's office's tactics! Thanks...