I have a legal question.

I'm in New York. From 2002-2007 we rented a small townhouse, were always on time with the rent and had no cause for concern. We ended up finding a house in a better neighborhood that we could rent to own and we jumped at the change. We were told that we could not get out of our lease, since it was winter or something, but we did anyway and we moved (probably not the best decision, but we are all aloud bad ones once in a while right?)

Now, my husband was injured and we ended up losing that house and are now in a place where we are again renting to own, we also lost our business and all our savings when he was hurt.

Fast forward to present day, the people who own the house we live in now, friends of ours in North Carolina call us to say they were served with papers that they had to answer personal information about us because we were being sued.

We called the lawyer and have been up front about everything. We are being sued for about $6500 from our broken lease 3 years ago.

We have sent the lawyer a payment agreement, which is low, but we are going to pay the debt off completely in February 2010 due to a payout we get from an annuity my husband has. We have sent the lawyer our paystubs, returned calls and have been pleasant, even though he is a head to us.

My question... we were never served anything, never notified. We were told we were sent a letter 3 years ago, but have never seen the letter, or it may have been the time while my husband was hurt and we were losing everything. Do I have any rights here? Can I argue that now that this judgement has been filed without my prior knowledge, they have ruined our credit, which we were finally starting to get back on track?

I'm not denying the debt, I take full repsonsibility for it, I want to pay it back, but I'm kind of screwed here and a simple phone call could have avoided most of this. The lawyer said he doesn't call people anymore because people don't return his calls.

I'm sick about this, My husband and I have worked so hard to rebuild ourselves after his accident and now it's all gone, he could garnish our wages and we could be destitue.

Sorry this is so long, I just really need some advice.

Thanks in advance.

Marie

Any questions, please ask!

Actually denying the debt is often the first and best thing,

Next never agreeing to anything at first.

If they have a judgement, find out, check the court house and the records, you can challenge the judgement for mproper service if they did not actually serve you legally.

If they have a judgement they don't have to accept any payment plan ( they don't have to accept payments even if there is not judgement.

Do not treat this attorney like a friend, if you send them pay stubs they know where and how to garnish your pay if they have a judgemenmt, so they can just get a percent of your pay easy with that info.

I wish I would have asked this question before I sent them anything, it does not pay to be honest and up front does it?

Should I contact the court and let them be aware that I was never served?

Why would they serve my friend if they had my address?

I have resepct for the law, if it's used right, I'm starting to the get the feeling I should be hiring a lawyer right about now, but we're broke of course.

Any suggestion about what I should do now?

Thanks

Marie

Also, is it legal to never serve us and put a judgement against us?

I just don't see where a letter that may or may not exsist three years ago and then never hearing from them until we are sued seems like a legal thing to do, but I'm not a lawyer.

Marie

The real problem here is that even if you protest the judgement based on improper service and win, what's going to happen is you will be properly served before you leave the courthouse.

This is a useful tactic if you are not sure the debt is yours or that the plaintiff can't prove it. But in your case I wouldn't bother.

This is a great example of how the law screws regular people all the time. Since I had no idea how this worked and was just an honest citizen trying to live my life, I get the shaft.

Tomorrow I'm going to drain my savings account, and since I have no property that they would want, the only choice they have is to garnish our wages or accept our offer.

If they choose to garnish our wages, we'll BK and they won't get a dime.

And I know it will ruin my credit for 7 years, but it's already ruined due to this judgement and my faith in this country and our legal system is shaken.

Like I said, I am more than willing to pay the debt, if I had known about it sooner, I would have made payments as well. We can have the whole thing paid in February, but this lawyer doesn't give a .

Any more advice?

Marie

I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you. Lets look at the facts here.

1) You broke your lease willfully even after being warend not to.

2) You knew there would be repercussions, but you did nothing to follow up on them.

Other than the fact that you do not recall getting any notice that the landlord was suing you, how are you being screwed?

If you plaintiff is not trying to work with you, then file to vacate the judgement on grounds of improper service. See if you can get a new hearing and make them account for the amount they are suing you for. The landlord was required to try to mitigate your losses. So he had to makie a good faith effort to try and re rent the property. You are not resposnible for any rental once they got a new tenant. By forcing a new hearing, you can examine these facts, maybe changing the award amount and mayube delaying things until you can get the money to offer a lump sum settlement.

First, I take full responsibility for what happened. I said that in the first post. My husband and I were wooed into another property, perhaps a stupid mistake, but I think everyone is allowed stupid mistakes.

The reason I believe we are screwed is because we WOULD have tried to pay this off, if we would have known about it. But nobody came to us, we didn't realize at the time that by breaking the lease they could sue us for the amount, we just didn't know, we were young and were oblivious.

Then my husband was hurt and we lost everything, and now we get to again... it sucks and we get screwed and so be it. I just hate to be judged on some stupid monetary mishap when it does not define me. Not to mention, we rented this place for 4 years, were never late with the rent and didn't sue them when cabinets fell on me when I was 9 months pregnant... but I digress.

We are TRYING, we really are, we've already given them a good faith payment of $200 and wrote up a payment agreement and will pay it off in February, but I just have a feeling it will not be good enough and the lawyer doesn't have to follow the rules of judgement, but I do.

I'm sure they will take everything, I was just hoping for some advice as far as should I just file for BK at this point, should I keep on trying with this lawyer, do I have any room to wiggle?

I have 8 months to stretch this out until we get our payout, how do I do that?

Thanks, it's been a rough couple of weeks.

Marie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dbledutchs

First, I take full responsibility for what happened. I said that in the first post. My husband and I were wooed into another property, perhaps a stupid mistake, but I think everyone is allowed stupid mistakes.

The reason I believe we are screwed is because we WOULD have tried to pay this off, if we would have known about it. But nobody came to us, we didn't realize at the time that by breaking the lease they could sue us for the amount, we just didn't know, we were young and were oblivious.

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I'm not sure if you understand the contradiction in what I quoted. You take full responsibility but still believe the legal system screwed you. That doesn't fully follow. If you place blame elsewhere you are not taking full responsibility.

The point is YOU did NOT do your homework. You did not find out the consequences of your breaking your lease, despite being warned about it. You made no attempt to follow up on the issue. The law hasn't screwed you, you screwed yourself by being "young and oblivious". I'm not trying to chastise you for those things because they are understandable. But you need to get past this "we were screwed" attitude.

If the plaintiff agrees, in writing, to your payment schedule, then they cannot take further action unless you violate the agreement. But, if you want to fight this, I suggested what you can do.

The lesson here is that before you do anything do your homework. Make sure you know all the consequences of an action.

I understand I broke the lease, I understand I should have either not broken the lease or paid the amount to break the lease... I understand all this now, but did not then. We were just told that we could not move, nothing else, and like I said I was wooed into a better property in a better location.

My point is that I was never served, never notified, one day they filed a judgement. Yes I realize I should have known before, but I honestly didn't. I didn't know they could sue, and we may have received a letter while my husband was going through his injury and we were losing everything.

I don't need a lesson on why I was wrong or how stupid I was, I get it okay, I just wanted advice on what to do next, how to get this paid and what my legal right is.

Don't tell me the legal system doesn't screw people every day, lawyers grease palms and know there way out, just like every other profession.

I still believe I got screwed a little bit, perhaps it was my fault, but I still think they took advantage. A simple phone call would have cleared the matter up.

Marie

And yes I know you think that you are still right, regardless, we disagree, let's just let that go... I'm sick of the fight and I have enough on my plate.

Marie

I never said you were stupid, just that you didn't do your due diligence. I understand the whys, but you have to understand that you got yourself into this situation. And blaming someone else for it doesn't help you.

And no, I don't dispute that people get screwed by the legal system every day. But most of the time its because they didn't practice due diligence.

As to what you need to do now, I've given you several suggestions.

And I'm not trying to fight with you. I'm trying to help you.