I live in Florida and own a small business, due to the economy I had to turn in a vehicle that was in my name only. I am married and all bank accounts are in both are names including my business account. My wife gets a check but our accountant gives her a 1099 and I do not receive a paycheck, if there is a check made to me its repayment for the money my wife and & I loaned the company to start it. The finance company that owns the vehicle would not work with us regarding reducing the payment for us before we turned it over. They sold it at private auction. They sent us papers that said the deficiency calculation was $ 28,900.91. Then the next set of papers we received was that $29,043.78 was being reported on my credit as a charge off. Then we got a settlement offer of $14,472.17 that they wanted in 20 days in full. We are just getting by right now, I've lost over 36,000 a year in business since 1-2008. So my questions is now that they have sent this to a collection agency and they said that within 30 days they will file a judgement. What can they do since I don't get a check myself. I was told that once a judgement is filed it is too late to file bankrupts on it, is that true? I don't want to file if I don't have to, I have good credit with other credit card companies and so does my business. I just don't have any extra money to make payments.

Thanks for any help you can give
Jami

Hello J:

Once they get a judgment, they'll be able to seize ANY account with your name on it... Plus, the'll add all sorts of legal fees to an already inflated number.

If you can get some CASH to negotiate with them, you'll probably get off for a great deal LESS than the $14K they were talking about.

Plus, a judgment will make all the other credit card rates jump, however the congress is doing something about that right now.

excon

excon is right (can't agree above, need to spread it around)

Too many people think the judgement is the end of the problem defining what they owe. This is really just the beginning as legal fees and charges keep getting added over time.