Father Sued by Cavalry SPV; NV; Son looking for guidance on how navigate through this

[Mahtzu]

1. Who is the named plaintiff in the suit?

Cavalry SPV I, LLC, As assignee of Citibank, N.A

2. What is the name of the law firm handling the suit? (should be listed at the top of the complaint.)

Mandarich Law Group, LLP

3. How much are you being sued for?

1st Acct - $5,595.56

2nd Acct - $908.87

4. Who is the original creditor? (if not the Plaintiff)

Citibank, N.A..

5. How do you know you are being sued? (You were served, right?)

Process Server delivered us papers.

6. How were you served? (Mail, In person, Notice on door)

In Person.

7. Was the service legal as required by your state?

Yes.

8. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued?

None.

9. What state and county do you live in?

Nevada, Washoe County.

10. When is the last time you paid on this account? (looking to establish if you are outside of the statute of limitations)

I will have to ask my parents for statements to get an accurate date, According to the complaints Acct #1 defaulted on 04/21/19 and Acct #2 defaulted on 05/26/19.

11. When did you open the account (looking to establish what card agreement may be applicable)?

I will have to ask my parents for this info too, will update post later today.

12. What is the SOL on the debt? To find out:

I'm assuming written as this was a card they signed up for with Home Depot, I'll have to verify this as well later.

13. What is the status of your case? Suit served? Motions filed? You can find this by a) calling the court or  looking it up online (many states have this information posted - when you find the online court site, search by case number or your name).

Suit Served, Both listed as active on the case lookup site.

14. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus (both the original creditor and the collection agency?)

No.

15. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? Note: if you haven't sent a debt validation request before being sued, it likely won't help create FDCPA violations, but disputing after being sued could be useful to show the court that you dispute the debt ('account stated' vs. 'breach of contract').

No.

16. How long do you have to respond to the suit? (This should be in your paperwork). If you don't respond to the lawsuit notice you will lose automatically. In 99% of the cases, they will require you to answer the summons, and each point they are claiming. We need to know what the "charges" are. Please post what they are claiming. Did you receive an interrogatory (questionnaire) regarding the lawsuit?

Within 20 days of 7/21/22(the date we were served), We did not receive any form of questionnaire. The charges are that they signed up for these credit cards, used them and then didn't and/or refused to pay them.

17. What evidence did they send with the summons? An affidavit? Statements from the OC? Contract? List anything else they attached as exhibits.

There was no evidence attached to the summons at all.

18.  How did you find out about this site?

I've been personally researching everything about the situation as to best help my dad through this situation.

 

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To add some context or relevant information to this, My parents took up these cards for some needed home renovations at the time ie. replacing severely damaged flooring and fixing up the roof. All of this was in the summer of 2019 where my parents were capable of keeping up with the payments since my Mom still held a job. Come 2020 and the start of the COVID lockdowns my Mom was forced to quit her job as she is handicapped and the COVID policies at her workplace put extra stress on her causing her health to deteriorate. Since then we've been trying to get her on disability to help catch us up on bills, we used our stimulus's to pay off some big debts but some debts namely the two my father is being sued for had to have been overlooked. 

I've talked to them about how they wanted to handle the situation and they were adamant on not wanting to have to go court and they didn't want to hire an attorney because of the costs and arguing that using an attorney would be more pricier than settling with the lawfirm/creditor(citibank), they are also not that fluent in English so I think having him defend himself would have the plaintiff running him in circles with all the legal jargon.

I've also talked to them about how much they're going to be able to commit to paying off these settlements and I was given a limit of around $200 after working through our budget, I'm very concerned that we won't get the numbers we want to hear from them but my plan so far is;

1) Answer the suit on Monday 7/25/22 and get it filed with the clerk and mailed to the law firm

2) Figure out how to call in an attempt to negotiate a settlement, My plan is to try and push for a max of 20% on Acct #2 and 40% on Acct #1 which puts our monthly to around $205.45

3) Figure out what to do if negotiations don't go as well as we want

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Thank you for your time reading over this, I've been stressing out extremely hard over this so much that I've been having near panic attacks at work just thinking about all the possibilities. I've been trying to reach out to as many people as I possibly can for any sort of input on the situation so any sort of input is EXTREMELY appreciated. Thank you!

[Clydesmom]

8 hours ago, Mahtzu said:

2) Figure out how to call in an attempt to negotiate a settlement, My plan is to try and push for a max of 20% on Acct #2 and 40% on Acct #1 which puts our monthly to around $205.45

The lowest you are likely to see them take in a lump sum settlement now that they have an active suit is 50-60% on both accounts.  They know they can do better than 20% with a judgment.  If they agree to a settlement with a $200/month payment they are going to want the full amount or close to it and a signed consent judgment.  That means if your parent(s) default again they don't have to sue they only have to file that judgment with the court and can proceed to bank account levy or wage garnishment.  The good news is if Mom ends up on disability they cannot garnish it and up to 2 months worth of benefits are exempt from bank levy.  Make sure if she gets disability it goes into a separate account in her name only so the money is automatically protected.

8 hours ago, Mahtzu said:

3) Figure out what to do if negotiations don't go as well as we want

I would see if Cavalry has a hardship program they can apply for.  It is possible that once they discover Dad isn't working and neither is Mom and about to be on disability that they simply drop the entire matter.  Keep in mind that to qualify they will expect financial disclosures like tax returns to ensure they are not being gas lt.

 

[Mahtzu]

1 hour ago, Clydesmom said:

The lowest you are likely to see them take in a lump sum settlement now that they have an active suit is 50-60% on both accounts.

That's what I was fearing since they had gotten this far, I talked it over with my dad and he said that he wasn't too worried since he planned on retiring soon and that he'd be fine since they wouldn't come after his retirement but I told him if judgement went through they'd come for other assets.

 

1 hour ago, Clydesmom said:

If they agree to a settlement with a $200/month payment they are going to want the full amount or close to it and a signed consent judgment.

He insists that he'll pay as long as it's a reasonable amount monthly, as far as a signed consent judgement goes how do they go about obtaining that? Would we still have to go to court or is that something that happens once we reach a settlement?

1 hour ago, Clydesmom said:

The good news is if Mom ends up on disability they cannot garnish it and up to 2 months worth of benefits are exempt from bank levy.  Make sure if she gets disability it goes into a separate account in her name only so the money is automatically protected.

She has a pretty good case for it, could you explain what you mean by 2 months worth of benefits are exempt from bank levy? As in they'd be able to pull disability benefits from the account after two months? And yes that was the plan for her disability.

1 hour ago, Clydesmom said:

I would see if Cavalry has a hardship program they can apply for.  It is possible that once they discover Dad isn't working and neither is Mom and about to be on disability that they simply drop the entire matter.  Keep in mind that to qualify they will expect financial disclosures like tax returns to ensure they are not being gas lt.

My dad is still working with the intent to retire in December or January next year, it's my Mom that's out of a job and going for disability right now. 

 

In any case I know my parents seem to be extreme optimistic in getting a settlement in their terms and I'm trying to rein them in and keep their expectations realistic. I talked with my dad this morning and he suggested filing for bankruptcy since he knows that there's other debt that will come up and that'd be the best way to give him some breathing space for our finances. Basically he was fine with paying for 3-5 years as long as they don't touch his retirement and my Mom's disability. He's told me was going to speak with a paralegal attorney who apparently had helped a coworker get through debt settlement in the past on Wednesday.

Regardless I'll be filing his answer tomorrow and I need some tips on what to admit/deny on the form.

[Clydesmom]

12 minutes ago, Mahtzu said:

That's what I was fearing since they had gotten this far, I talked it over with my dad and he said that he wasn't too worried since he planned on retiring soon and that he'd be fine since they wouldn't come after his retirement but I told him if judgement went through they'd come for other assets.

They cannot garnish retirement pay or accounts that is true.  If they live here in NV and have a homestead exemption on their house they cannot force the sale to pay the debt either.  As for other assets depends on their liquid worth.  Often it is not worth the costs to go after them unless they are high end.

13 minutes ago, Mahtzu said:

He insists that he'll pay as long as it's a reasonable amount monthly, as far as a signed consent judgement goes how do they go about obtaining that? Would we still have to go to court or is that something that happens once we reach a settlement?

If you are not making a lump sum settlement offer then they usually offer a deal with payments of X amount for Y months to satisfy in full.  They have you sign the consent judgment at the time.

14 minutes ago, Mahtzu said:

She has a pretty good case for it, could you explain what you mean by 2 months worth of benefits are exempt from bank levy? As in they'd be able to pull disability benefits from the account after two months? And yes that was the plan for her disability.

That means the bank account the disability payments goes into can have the equivalent of up to 2 months worth of disability payments as a balance and is safe from levy.  So if her disability is $1000 a month her bank balance cannot exceed $2000.  Anything over $2000 is subject to levy.  Anything less is protected by federal law.

16 minutes ago, Mahtzu said:

I talked with my dad this morning and he suggested filing for bankruptcy since he knows that there's other debt that will come up and that'd be the best way to give him some breathing space for our finances.

I agree with him.  A consult with 2 or 3 bankuptcy attorneys is in order to discuss all their options.