Wondering about judgement

[rreed]

I got a car repoyed about 04 got a summons on 05...I didn't go they won...SOL in the state of nevada is three years....but they just now like last week finally got to garnish my wages is there anything I can do?

[looksbothways]

Judgments don't have the same SOL as the original debt. It looks like the SOL on a domestic judgment is 6 years (but judgments are usually renewable anyway)

Source: http://www.carreonandassociates.com/articles/statute.htm#Nevada

There's not much you can do about the garnishment. They're entitled to 25% of net income or 30 times federal minimum wage, whichever is less.

[rreed]

Sigh....sucks for me ;( nothing I can do?!

[admin]

Sorry...once the 1 year anniversary of your judgment passes (not sure exactly what it is in your state, but no states I know have an SOL for appeals longer than 2) you can't do anything. That's why immediate action is always necessary.

[looksbothways]

Unfortunately, not really. You could get out of it were if you were filing bankruptcy or your income was from an exempt source such as unemployment, social security, or disability. If you're paying court ordered child support, you can claim that the garnishment interferes with that order. I don't know exactly how that works.

[admin]

Yes, you are right - you could get your self declared exempt from collection of the money from the judgment given the right (or rather unfortunate) financial circumstances.

But about the judgment, nada.

[flacorps]

Changing jobs could help (but you would have to tell them where your new job was if they put you under oath), and so could moving out of state (provided your new out-of-state employer didn't have a Nevada presence the creditor could use to garnish from afar).

Keep in mind that even if you move out of state, a really determined creditor could record the judgment in the new state under the UEFJA and start up again (of course, the new state might be one of the ones that doesn't allow garnishment).

[admin]

Keep in mind that even if you move out of state, a really determined creditor could record the judgment in the new state under the UEFJA and start up again (of course, the new state might be one of the ones that doesn't allow garnishment).

Actually - no they can't record in another state. A judgment is just granted in whatever court it was granted. Period. But it can follow you around in every state via your credit report. And that is tough to get off.

[flacorps]

Actually - no they can't record in another state. A judgment is just granted in whatever court it was granted. Period. But it can follow you around in every state via your credit report. And that is tough to get off.

I suggest you look up the UEFJA on Wikipedia.

Or just take a look at this case:

http://www.14thcoa.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/htmlopinion.asp?OpinionId=84298

[admin]

The judgment is enforceable most definitely - but I'm not really sure what you are getting at here (sorry, feeling a little foggy today).

Maybe we are just confused by semantics?

[flacorps]

The judgment is enforceable most definitely - but I'm not really sure what you are getting at here (sorry, feeling a little foggy today).

Effective judgments can migrate from state to state in pursuit of debtors by virtue of the federal Constitution's full faith and credit clause.

In olden days, they had to do that by the process of domestication according to haphazard sets of rules in all 50 states. Post UEFJA, typically you just record the judgment and skip straight to whatever post-judgment remedy you want to try.

Keep in mind that the judgments don't travel as frequently and freely as creditors would like. There are filing fees and new attorneys involved at each state line. That means that the UEFJA, streamlined as it is, tends to be for the larger cases rather than the smaller ones.

[admin]

I think we are saying the same thing.

Say if a judgment is entered in Arizona - the person holding the judgment doesn't really re-record the judgment in order to seize money from a checking account or garnish wages.

What they are doing is getting a court order in order to give someone's employer or bank the legal right to get the money.

Even if the creditor was in the same state, they would have to get a separate order to do this. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[flacorps]

Keep in mind that even if you move out of state, a really determined creditor could record the judgment in the new state under the UEFJA and start up again (of course, the new state might be one of the ones that doesn't allow garnishment).

Actually - no they can't record in another state. A judgment is just granted in whatever court it was granted. Period. But it can follow you around in every state via your credit report. And that is tough to get off.

I was responding to a statement that appeared to say that once you change states all the judgment can do is show up on your credit report.

Although it requires effort that isn't necessarily going to be taken by the creditor, I think we're all clear that a judgment can be enforced in a new state ... at least, efforts can be made to enforce it. Because some states are "debtors' paradises" those efforts may prove less availing in the new state of residence, depending on how the debtor chooses to order his affairs as well.

The steps one would take to enforce a judgment in a new state would be to record under the UEFJA and then choose from the menu of post-judgment remedies offered by the new state (typically asset seizure, wage garnishment, liens on real property [whether you can foreclose on homestead or not], post-judgment discovery to find out what property is where, etc.). If moving to Florida had fully covered OJ's legal problems, he would still have the Heisman and the other stuff...

[admin]

Yeah, I think that's what I just said. They file for a judgment remedy.