Tag Archive for: vacate

Overview of Debt Litigation

The new 20:20 project –

New Year, New Kind of Membership

There are three videos in this series. Together, they describe the debt litigation process and almost everything you will encounter as you go through it. We have products for every situation, but these videos are more about the process than our products. Below the videos you will see more about a new product that brings all of our other materials together. If you prefer what we have previously offered, those things will still be available.

Part One

The debt and debt litigation industry.

Part 2

Debt Defense and why it can be so difficult

Part 3

Why Pro se works and how you can do it.

Here is the 20-20 Membership

We are introducing two new types of membership, the 20-20 and 20-20 plus. Right now, the difference is just how long they last, but it is likely that there will be some special content or materials for 2020+ before too long.

If you have watched the videos above, you know why we’re offering these products and why I think they’re a great deal. I will outline the new memberships briefly below.

First and mainly, the 20-20 membership will be a “pay-once” program. For a flat price you will receive all membership benefits for 12 months. This should get you all the way through to the end of any litigation you are involved in now. You won’t buy anything else from us or be charged again. Here’s what the 20-20 membership includes:

Teleconferences – currently we have them twice per week. Depending on need, that number could increase so that people regularly have an opportunity to ask questions in real time.

Access to member-only materials, including what used to be called the document bank. This gives you access to materials that have been created for a variety of different real-life situations as well as a large number of articles addressing the situations most debt litigants encounter. In other words, the 20-20 is a full membership, and you get everything members ever get.

Free access to all of our products. You won’t have to buy anything anymore. If you need a motion to compel pack, for example, you can download it for free. And that’s true of all of our materials that are currently for sale.

Specifically, that includes the Debt Defense Litigation Manual, the Three Weaknesses Almost every Debt Collector Has and how to Use them, materials on assignment contracts (not yet, but soon, a product), the Legal Research and Analysis report, and much more.

You can check the prices, but you’ll find that, added up, these materials and benefits would cost at least $1,000, so this is by far the lowest price we’ve ever offered. The 20-20 (regular) will cost $250 for 12 months, and the 20-20+ will cost $300 for 18 months. This membership should be available for sale as soon as December 27, and the prices will stay good through February 15.

Click here for a more detailed description and comparison of these new memberships to the other memberships.

Voidable Judgments – the Other Kind of Motion to Vacate

Voidable Judgments – the Other Kind of Motion to Vacate

For a free copy of this article in PDF form, click here: the other kind of motion to vacate

Most of the time when people talk about motions to vacate they’re talking about motions to vacate a default that occurred as a result of failure to respond to a properly served lawsuit. There is another kind of motion to vacate, though, for people where the court did not have proper jurisdiction. If that’s your situation, this is a better way.

A Quick Review

Once a lawsuit is properly served on a defendant, the court has “jurisdiction” (the power to address the claims made in the suit) at least provisionally. If a defendant fails to respond appropriately to such a suit, the plaintiff will probably get a default order and judgment. That is what happens in a large majority of debt cases.

An “appropriate” response that will prevent a default judgment is either:

  • An Answer, or
  • a motion to dismiss the suit.

It is also possible to file a motion “for more definite statement” in some states, as well. The point is, though, that every allegation in the petition must either be moved against or answered. If that happens, a default judgment should never be issued.

If you fail to answer and the court awards a default judgment, you can ask the court to give you another chance by asking it to “vacate” the default and allow you to defend the case. I discuss what this is, what the time limits are, and how to do it in several articles, see, e.g.,  Overcoming Default Judgments.

Voidable Judgments

But what if the court does NOT have or get proper jurisdiction over you?

This can happen in two common ways: the debt collector does not manage to serve you properly; or the debt collector sues you in a court that doesn’t have power over you (because you live somewhere else). Other ways are possible, but these are by far the most common.

If you find out that you are being sued in a court that lacks jurisdiction before judgment, you can move to dismiss the case on that basis, but that can defeat the whole purpose of the rule – since in order to do so you would have to appear (“specially”) in the court to do it, and if you’re far away, that’s impractical. Another way to handle the situation is to let the court rule and then attack the judgment in the correct court. That also has significant drawbacks, so if you know about the situation before judgment, it can present a tough question.

But most people do not learn about suits where the courts lack jurisdiction before judgment.  They find out about them later. What do you do if that happens?

No Authority, No Judgment

The good news is that there is NO time limit on a voidable judgment. The court never had authority to enter the judgment, and “all” you have to do is establish that fact. You can do that at any time, and it completely undoes the judgment. It is called “void ab initio,” meaning “from the beginning” as if it never existed.

Burden of Proof

The bad news is that you can have a high burden of proving that the court did not have authority over you. Most courts require you to present “clear and convincing” evidence of the facts that you were not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. In the case of residency – you were living in California but sued in Florida, that isn’t necessarily so hard.

In the case of sewer service – where you weren’t served, but the process server swore you were, it can be much more of a challenge. Still, almost everybody I’ve known who tried it succeeded. That’s because the process servers normally describe the person to whom they theoretically gave the petition, and they usually won’t know your age or body shape, and often guess incorrectly your gender and race. If their affidavit says they served a woman 5’2” eyes of blue and you’re obviously not that, you’re good. Other things obviously aren’t as easy to prove.

What you Have to Prove

You have to prove by good evidence that the court lacked jurisdiction over you.

What you Do Not Have to Prove

You won’t have to prove you made any mistake (you didn’t) or that the substance of the judgment (i.e., you owe $2,000) was wrong in any way. You do not need to allege or prove any “defense” to the suit, in other words. Attack the jurisdiction, and the case goes away.

What you Should Not Have to Prove

You shouldn’t have to prove you didn’t receive notice of a sewer service filing. Suppose, for example, you found it in the trash in a nearby dumpster. Most courts require proper service and not “notice” of the suit. But I’m afraid you can’t count on the courts to apply that rule consistently. You will not want to offer proof or any indication that you heard about the case in any way prior to judgment. If you became alerted to the fact that a process server was around and do some research in the court files, you will want to disguise the fact and cover your trail.

Special State Rules

The rules for this sort of motion to vacate are NOT the easily found rules in the rules of civil procedure. You must research your state’s rules for voidable judgments and follow whatever rules you find there.

Products Related to this Article

We do not have a product directly related to this article if you are moving to void a judgment. You may find our Motion to Vacate Pack helpful in showing you the form of motions and proof, but it does not contemplate the rules you would need to follow. I emphasize, again, that in filing a motion to void a judgment entered without jurisdiction, you would not want or need to include a “proposed Answer,” and you would not need to allege a defense (although claiming a defense wouldn’t hurt and might help).

You would probably find our memberships useful, particularly if the situation with the debt collector that brought you here is not the only one you’re facing.

Memberships

Members get discounts on all products as well as unlimited opportunities to join our regularly scheduled teleconferences. This gives invaluable real-time assistance, answers to questions, help with strategies, and encouragement. You also get the Litigation Manual and the Three Weaknesses Report for free with membership. Find out about memberships by clicking the “About Memberships” link in the menu at the top of the page.

 

Sign Up for Free Information

You can sign up to receive information from us by clicking on this link and following the instructions: https://yourlegallegup.com/blog/sign-up-for-free-information/

What you’ll receive if you sign up is a series of several videos and articles spread out over several days, and then you will occasionally hear from us as we add information to the site. We don’t always announce that information, though.

What you will not receive is any marketing from other people – or much from us, either. Our goal is to make the site more useful to members and visitors, not to swamp anyone with sales materials. The information we send will have links to information or products that we think may be helpful.

Overcoming Default Judgments

As anybody familiar with my work knows, most debt cases end in either default or “give-up settlements,” where the person sued agrees to everything (or almost everything) the debt collector wants. It is one of the strangest things in all of law: most debt cases that are filed couldn’t be won if they were opposed; but very few people fight. So 90 percent of the unwinnable cases filed in debt are in fact won with the greatest of ease.

Strange.

So what is a default? It is first a court order, and often a judgment immediately or after a short delay, giving the plaintiff – the person who brought the suit – whatever they wanted. It happens when the defendant does not show up or defend himself or herself in court. Note that “default” is not the correct way to describe what happens if you DO show up and lose. The result of not showing up is usually a complete, automatic victory for the plaintiff, and that’s what we’re talking about.

The courts do not “favor” such an outcome. That’s because a case that is won because it wasn’t opposed is not a victory “on the merits” – there’s no real indication it’s fair, and as everybody knows in the debt context, it often is NOT fair. But what can the courts do?

If you have had a default against you, you may have a chance to get that changed. If you take steps, and if they think you weren’t playing games in the first place, they will often reverse the judgment. Then you go back to defending the lawsuit. If you get that far, you will probably win the suit – 90% of winning the case will be in getting the judgment vacated (removed). That will stop collection and start the case over – but if you’re willing to fight, and manage to get the default judgment vacated, you’ll find the rest of it pretty easy.

We have products that can help you do all that.

Procedure for Moving to Vacate

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Overcoming Default Judgments in Debt Cases

This is a companion to the video, “Procedure for Moving to Vacate Default Judgments.” This video explains why you should try to vacate (remove) a default judgment against you and generally how to go about doing it. The second video goes into a little more detail on that and tells you specifically what documents you will  need to file and what they should contain. If you have defaulted on a debt suit and want to try to reopen it (to prevent collection), check out our product: Motion to Vacate Pack. For a more comprehensive understanding of the debt law and defense, you need our Debt Defense System.

We categorize this video under “collection” because often the way people discover there’s been a default judgment is that there is some action to garnish wages or collect on the judgment. If that’s your situation, it isn’t too late. To prevent the collection/garnishment, you will need to get the judgment against you vacated (eliminated). And the very first step in doing that is finding out what happened. To do that, you will go to the court, look up the judgment, get the file on it, and look in the file to see what happened.

It gets a little more complicated than that after you find out what happened, but there are actions you can take, and our job is to help you figure out which and to do them.

 

Motion to Vacate or Set Aside

If you missed the time for filing your Answer or showing up in court – even by just a few minutes, there is probably a default order or judgment against you. You will need to get that order vacated or “set aside,” the legalese for “removed.” You need the court’s initial judgment to go away, in other words, so you can start over and defend yourself from the debt collectors. You ask the court to do that by filing a Motion to Vacate. There are two parts to every motion to vacate – the part that explains and seeks to excuse your failure to answer, and the part that shows the court that you have some sort of defense to the suit.

There are two conflicting policies behind vacating default judgments: the policy in favor of hearing every case “on the merits” (rather than letting the case be decided by a “technicality”) and the policy in favor of “finality,” which is just a way of saying that when a court has decided something it likes for things to end. When you’re a “little guy,” the courts are more interested in finality than they are for bigger economic players.

At the same time, the debt collector will fight hard to keep its default judgment – that gives it a chance to raid your bank accounts or wages at practically zero cost rather than allowing you to defend. Thus while you have a very good chance to get the default judgment removed, the motion is a little tricky, and time is of the essence, meaning that any delay in filing the motion could cause you to lose it.

The Motion to Vacate or Set Aside Default Judgment Packet consists of 9 Documents:

  • Two Sample Motions
  • An “annotated” Motion – to be used as a model for cutting and pasting
  • A Sample Affidavit
  • Sample Memorandum in Support
  • Sample Proposed Answer and Counterclaim
  • Instructions
  • Case law notes
  • Report on Default Judgments and Motions to Vacate.

Although this is not “cut and paste” you will find this document, along with the directions, just what you need to file your Motion to Vacate and to get started defending yourself so you can keep the debt collectors from garnishing your wages or raiding your bank account.

motion to vacate

Getting Past Default Judgments and Defending Yourself from Debt

What is a default judgment and what should you do if a debt collector gets one against you? This video begins to answer those questions.

When a debt collector brings a suit, and a process server hands it to you or a “responsible” member of your household, you have been served and must take actions to defend yourself in court. If you don’t respond appropriately (by answer or motion to dismiss, for example – NOT by sending a request for verification!!), the debt collector will probably get a default judgment.

Most debt cases – perhaps as many as 80% – end in default judgments. Many people who ignore the suit then think the debt case had just, somehow, “gone away” are surprised to learn that the debt collector got a judgment and is now looking to garnish wages. And the way you find that out is not at all pleasant, because it generally happens after the debt collector has found where you work or bank and seized assets or started garnishing your wages. This massively disrupts most debtors’ budgets and puts them way behind.

It does happen, all too often, that defendants are NOT served, but the process server says they were. Then, the way these people find out they’ve been sued is that they get a notice of garnishment (somebody taking their bank account or part of their wages).

They Got a Default Judgment, Now What?

Regardless of how it came about, the first step in stopping the garnishment and fighting the debt lawsuit is to get the judgment against you vacated. And in order to do this, you must file a “Motion to Vacate.”

This video talks about that process and how you would go about vacating the judgment against you, stopping the garnishment (or not, if you’ve learned of the judgment in some other way).

This is a companion to the video, “Procedure for Moving to Vacate Default Judgments.” This video explains why you should try to vacate (remove) a default judgment against you and generally how to go about doing it. The second video goes into a little more detail on that and tells you specifically what documents you will  need to file and what they should contain. If you have defaulted on a debt suit and want to try to reopen it (to prevent collection), check out our product: Motion to Vacate Pack.

For much more help, you should consider joining. You can find out about that by clicking here or on “About Membership” in the menu above. If you know what you want, just click here.