Lesley Abigail Hoenig's Answers

What do I have to do after being served papers from a creditor seeking a debt collection judgment

The first thing you want to do is to file your response to the complaint with the court. Whatever you do, you do not want to admit to owing the debt if you do not want a judgment entered against you. If it is the original creditor, then it might be the case that you'd be likely to lose if you insisted on bringing the case to trial. If you don't respond, however, you will definitely have a judgment entered against you. If a judgment is entered the creditor can: garnish your wages,...

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Default judgement

You do have recourse. You can typically get a judgment vacated in Illinois if you were never given notice. Additionally, if it has been less than 30 days since the judgment was entered, you should be able to get a default judgment vacated. I'd recommend seeing a local attorney about this as soon as possible. If the credit card company can't prove their case at trial, it's most likely worthwhile to get the judgment vacated.

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Can a credit card company freeze a bank account and garnish social security and pension income

In order for your bank account to be garnished by a creditor, the creditor must obtain a judgment against you and go through the judicial process to garnish your account. If they do have a judgment, they can freeze your account. However, you are entitled to claim certain funds exempt before they are allowed a garnishment (and you have to pay attention to any notices sent to you). If you receive a notice that your account has been garnished it is up to you to claim an exemption on any of the...

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My fiance and his ex-wife are co-debtors on a school loan.

It shouldn't have much impact on his credit provided there are no incorrect entries made on his credit report. The loans are not dischargeable, and the ex-wife will continue to be personally liable despite the bankruptcy. Your fiance should keep an eye on his credit to make sure nothing derogatory shows up. If something derogatory shows up, he needs to be diligent about contesting it, as he has not filed bankruptcy. Other than him and his ex-spouse getting brand new loans to pay off their...

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Would Home Equity Line of Credit be discharged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy

All debt except for those that are deemed nondischargeable are discharged. However, this does not remove liens on your home. It only releases you from personal liability so that once the house is foreclosed on, you no longer have to worry about the debt. If you want to keep the house, you will have to pay off any mortgages and HELOCs attached to the house. If you plan to surrender the house, then you will be forever done with that debt. This is assuming that the lender has no valid reason...

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Debt

Typically no, what can cause you to wind up in jail (in Illinois at least, I imagine the procedure is similar in most states), is if they get a judgment against you, they issue a citation to discover assets (or your locale's equivalent) and serve you, and you fail to appear at the court date, so they have a Rule to Show Cause issued due to your failure to appear, and serve you with the rule, and you still don't show up. Then a bond amount can be set and you could be arrested due to the bond,...

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Home equity loan in Chapter 7

The home equity loan has a second lien on your home. This does not mean that you cannot claim your house exempt, but whether you need to depends on the amount of equity you have in your house. Is your house worth more than the two mortgages combined? If not, there is no need to claim the house exempt. If there is, then you will want to claim your homestead exemption. It's always a good idea to claim the exemption whether there is much equity or not, provided that it is your goal to keep...

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What are my rights under the federal fair debt collection practices act

Just to add to The first answerer's answer, attorneys fees are part of what can be recovered in a FDCPA case, so it should be possible to obtain an attorney, because they can win attorney's fees on top of winning you the damages for each incident. There are attorneys that specialize in these types of cases, and I recommend starting out by searching for a consumer law attorney.

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What rights do the states have over the federal government in 1787

Traditionally, all rights not provided to the Federal Government are given to the states. Typically the kinds of issues states regulate have to do with the welfare of their residents, whereas the Federal Government is not supposed to legislate on the general welfare of the states. The way the federal government typically got around this in the past was due to the Commerce Clause, whereas now the 14th Amendment is commonly used as well to allow the federal government to impose certain laws on...

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Can I "avoid" my second mortgage if it was not reaffirmed in my chapter 7 bankruptcy that was discharged in June

In response to your additional information, If there isn't a properly filed mortgage on file with the county, then it's entirely possible that your 2nd mortgage doesn't have a proper security interest.

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