Understanding Judgments… What to do now you've been served.

Let's assume the Sheriff or that seedy character has caught up with you and now you have this formidable stack of legal papers in front of you. What are you going to do now? Who do you call? You're only human and probably too embarrassed to talk to anyone so you put the stack of papers on the dresser and forget about them. That is a big no-no. Why is this? When you finally read the stack of papers you need to take note of the very first sentences. Here the court is informing you and the person suing you there is a pre-trial conference scheduled.

This simply means there is no trial date set yet. There is a way for the court to bring both parties together to try and negotiate a settlement. Now isn't that strange? Here I am trying to teach you how to negotiate your debts and here's the court system ORDERING both parties to try and negotiate the debt. My, isn't this ironic in that you have waited for the legal system to order you to do that which I am trying to teach you.

I will say this one time. It is very important to understand that you finally have an opportunity to talk to someone about your past debt, whether or not you owe the amount being sued for or not. Remember when the moron called you on the phone, berating you for not paying your debts? You were very honest and wanted to talk to someone about how much you owed and whether or not you could make a payment arrangement. But you got stuck with the village idiot who wasn't in the least interested in your plight. This why I don't want you to talk on the phone with, or heaven forbid, call a bill collector.

If you do not have any money to pay the bill, you can always negotiate a settlement. Be prepared. Bring a copy of your paycheck, car payment, rent payment, phone bill and all other bills. The mediator will figure out how much you can afford to pay on a bill and in most cases the suing party will accept the mediator's award. If you are not prepared, how can anyone determine your ability to pay?

REMEMBER THIS! If you do not how up to mediation you will automatically lose. The judge will not have even seen the case. Just because you failed to show up the opposing party automatically gets awarded whatever they asked for. Whether or not you owed anything, they will get it. So is it worth it to show up and defend yourself? Absolutely. Even if you do not have any money, the courts will always work out something that is fair.

In my next article we'll finish up mediation settlements and move on to the actual court appearance and ways to handle that.

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