How to avoid a default judgment?

You make me want to say "Are you kidding?"

Judging from your question I will have to assume that you don't have a clue about default judgments.

They happen because you don't pay what you owe and the creditor or a debt collector sues you in court and you fail to answer the summons.

 

Are you asking this question because providing the "new address" gives them a location to serve papers?

A judgement can still be made, and there are other ways to find a current address for someone.

As Cap1 sucks noted, this is about defaulting on a debt, and withholding a current address will not avoid the judgement.

 

It is even worse than that by far. You want them to have your correct address even if you are in default. Most debtors who have no means of paying their debts make many "deadly" mistakes. Here are some of them.

1. Hiding new addresses.
2. Refusing to answer the telephone. The way to put a stop to telephone harassment is to remember that debt collectors all work from a script, a canned speech. They either use the one the company gave them or they end up developing their own. Sure, they vary from the script depending on how the conversation goes but are trained to handle certain situations in certain ways. They work on a base salary plus commission and their cannend speeches are designed to maximize collections and bonus checks. If you want to stop their phone calls then you must do the same thing they do. You must have a canned speech of your own. You must answer the phone and take control of the conversation immediately. Debt collectors never want to answer questions. They want to only ask them and get answers. Take control of the conversation by asking such questions as.
1. What did you say your name was? (ANS. Jane)
No, your full name? What is your full name? Stay on the point until you get
an answer.

2. What company do you work for?
3. What is your address? (Be sure to get the full address, City, state and zip code.) Take your time and act like you are writing it down every time even if you aren't. Make them repeat or spell out street and city names. Act like you don't spell too good or write too fast. If they want to know why you need the company address ask them how else you would pay them if you don't know where to send the money. If they say they will take your payment over the phone tell them you never make payments over the phone because you can't get a paper receipt that way.

4. What is your phone number? If they ask why you want their phone number tell them you might lose their address and have to call up to get it when you send the money.

5. What is the name of the company you are trying to collect for?

6. What is their address? (Go through the same routine as above.

7. What is their phone number?

8. How much money do they claim I owe?

9. Are you recording this call? (if they say yes, then say "Good! Then I'm sure you don't mind that I'm recording the call too." You would be surprised how many times the line suddenly goes dead right then and there. ) Say it even if you aren't recording the call which you should always do. Remember that you can record calls no matter what your state law says so long as you don't play the recording to any third party. FCC law says that playing a recorded phone call to a third party is what is illegal. That goes for ham radio transmissions too. Recording isn't illegal, playing it to others might be depending on what state you live in. Recording of phone calls is always legal if you have reason to believe that the conversation might contain information about illegal activities It is illegal to violate FDCPA isn't it? It is logical to record a debt collector because you suspect that illegal activity might occur on the phone.

10. What is your address? (ANS. I already gave you my address) No, I want your home address. (Which you will never get(LOL)

11. What is your phone number? (ANS. I already gave my phone number) No, I want your home phone number.(Which you will never get)

12. What is your social security number? (Which you willl never get)

13. Will you validate the debt? Be sure to tell them that you dispute the debt and every portion there of until they validate the debt. This will always get an interesting conversation going, trust me on that. (LOL)

At any point that they refuse to answer the question switch to #13 and get ready to hang up on them. If they scream at you scream back at them until they stop it.

Do they have to answer all those questions? Of course not. But it sure does waste an awful lot of their precious time which they could be using to collect money from someone who will pay up and it don't take more than 3 or 4 calls before they realize that and stop calling you which is what you wanted in the first place. Mission accomplished.

3. Trying to duck the process server or sheriff trying to serve summons.
That's guaranteed to get you a default judgment which you will have a terrible time trying to get vacated later. Ducking the process server can have some other interesting side effects you really don't want to find out about too so don't do that. Be nice to the process server. They are doing their job and that is all. Study the papers closely. Notice how many days you have to answer the summons. Be sure you respond to the summons timely even if it is to file motion for an extension of time to answer. Never listen to those who would try to get you to actually answer the summons as your first response.
Never think that a letter to the judge will get the job done. It won't. Your first response to the summons filed only 3 to 5 days before the deadline should probably be a request for a more definitive statement instead of an answer.
Follow the rules of procedure and demand definitive answers based on statements in the complaint. Don't ask any questions. Save those for your interrogatories later. Don't demand production of any documents. Save those for your demand for production of documents later. Study your rules of procedure and learn what you can and cannot ask. When you run out of things you can ask for more definitive statements about then it will be time to think about filing motions to dismiss their case and after that file your answers and your affirmative defenses. Once those are in it is time to move on to interrogatories, admissions and demand for production of documents. Get yours in to them before they send theirs to you if you possibly can. There is a definite time limit within which time the respondent must answer or their failure to answer can be deemed admitted by the court. You must understand and know in advance that attorneys will never directly answer any interrogatory, never admit anything and will often try to evade providing any documentation. You need to do the same. They will always base their answers on rules of procedure or evidence. You must do the same.

4. Ignoring letters.
5. Throwing letters in the trash.
6. Ignoring letters from attorneys.
7. Refusing to sign for certified letters.
That will always lose you valuable information and the chance to defend your rights by failing to file suit against them in federal court for violations of FDCPA, TILA or other laws. Always remember that it is better to be a plaintiff in federal court than it is to be a defendant in any court.

8. Ignoring summons because you think you have no defense.
9. Looking for easy ways out of your mess such as borrowing more money to pay off what you owe now. It only digs your hole deeper. If want to get out of the hole you are in then don't dig it any deeper.

Those are just a few. There are probably more.

If you want to be absolutely certain to lose your case and get a nice judgment against you the best way to do that is to listen to or pay for idiot theories about how they didn't really loan you any money, the court don't have jurisdiction, you were never properly served, demand the judge provide you with his oath of office, or any of the other idiot theories you can find all over the internet. No matter how cute they sound they just won't work.

As a famous attorney once said, this ain't rocket science. It is all really fairly simple and about all you have to do is learn the law, learn your rules of civil procedure and rules of evidence and above all, use common sense. Stop and think before you act.

And no, I'm not an attorney and I'd be ashamed to admit it if I were. I'm not giving you legal advice, just the benefit of many years of experience.

 

If they did that then the court would have no jurisdiction and you could get the judgment vacated on that grounds alone.

It does happen sometimes that people get served at old addresses but not all that often.