Question

One thing that you might have missed is whether you are in a community property state or not. If you are then all your precautions are for nothing because in community property states both are responsible.

 

I second cap1

 

Ohio is not a community property state. Next, you say that you are self employed. What do you do? Some types of self employment are reasonably safe from garnishment procedures but if you have any bank accounts you need to get them cleaned out of all money and quit using banks entirely. You can't even ask your wife to cash checks for you because if you do they can file an information subpoena demanding that the bank send them all information about your wife's account. If any money from anyone other than her employer shows up they can then grab it all. They can do that with any account even including pension check accounts. Outside money in the account poisons the whole thing.

 

Which you get paid for. There will be rules as to how much money you can have and what you can do with the money you have. You can't just hide it. Well, you can, but you will be breaking some laws more than likely.

They will likely get their judgments against you and then drag you in to explain how you make money and where you put it. If you gave it to your wife, they will want it back. So what you are trying to do will be difficult. Try to figure out what the credit card SOL is in Ohio. Ohio has a very long SOL for written contracts, Dumb Bob thinks he recalls, but he isn't sure exactly how the courts define credit card debt. Look into that before deciding exactly what you are going to do.

 

Hiding money? I suppose that depends on how that term is defined. He works for himself and although taking checks from customers is a universally accepted means of getting paid, there are many businesses that do not accept checks and get along just fine. Then there is the option to take payments by cellphone. Although it isn't nearly as widely known about as Paypal there is another option that in some ways is far better than Paypal. That option lets anyone pay you using only their cellphone. I have such a plan in place and my account has a whole 25 cents in it. I don't even know where the quarter came from. (LOL). It is also tied to my bank account so I can use it to buy things at garage sales or for buying from a private individual. All they need is a cellphone to get the money I send them. I've never used the account that way yet but it is an option and I'm quite sure that in a couple of years or so it will become commonplace for people to exchange money using only their cellphones. Five or ten years from now cellphones will also be used in stores instead of the terminals they use now. It is bound to become universally accepted sooner or later.

Another option is to accept checks but cash them at his customer's bank instead of depositing it in his account. Those options don't necessarily mean he is hiding any money.

 

Whatever he does, he can be forced to come to the court and answer questions about it under oath.

If they could show that he was making enough money that his money isn't all protected and that it is going to his wife, perhaps they can make the argument that the funds are commingled. It's not just the $20 from the lawn mowing that they'd be looking for.

They could certainly try to get him to justify it.

And still have less cash on hand than his state's limits?

Whatever they are considered is up to the state courts.

Which is the rule. If neither side contends that there is a choice of law issue, it's not up to the court to search one out.

This might be difficult if they really aren't sure what those terms and conditions are. Credit card contracts are regularly amended and no one might know which contract or which amendments apply.

One problem with this is that often states toll the SOL when you are not in the state. If you have never been in the state, the SOL may last forever. So it wouldn't be three years but three years of you being in Virginia. (At least this is often how it reads, Dumb Bob isn't making ay statement here about Virginia or any other specific state.) The state you are in might have rules that say that SOLs must be reasonably fair, and never ending the SOL isn't fair so the home state might get the SOL aspect back again. Figuring this out is why getting a lawyer for at least some of the harder aspects of making these arguments is probably beneficial.

This is all very complicated. States may have rules about how to decide which always apply, the nexus of the event, the litigants involved, etc. Presumably if the people signing a contract added a clause to say that the laws of somewhere apply, that's what they wanted. Dumb Bob believes there are limits to crazy terms like this, "The laws of Botswana apply". Why? If there's no reason at all, that might be reason for the clause to not apply. In the case of teh credit card contracts, it's most likely the card company's home state, so there is very good reason for the laws to apply, where they wouldn't be unfair or against the forum state's public policy.

Dumb Bob thinks that 15 years of SOL might be a bit much to take without at least trying to make some argument similar to that. But looking at Ohio case law might serve up other options. Dumb Bob isn't sure.

Of course the discussion was about someone who couldn't pay right now so clearly these things aren't close to SOL yet.

 

In a choice of law situation, you don't have to live in that state for the law to apply. You may never have set foot in VA, but if the contact says it's subject to the laws of Virginia, it is.

I don't think Citi puts SD in a choice of law provision. They just do business there so that they can charge exorbitant rates.

And many states consider a credit card to be an open-ended agreement.

 

Some people during the great depression thought with so many people failing the banks couldn't possibility foreclose on all those houses.Well when you check the want ads see how many collectors are hiring,they will go after everyone.

 

Choice of law and which SOL applies aren't exactly the same thing. The forum state will apply its procedural laws and use its choice of law provisions to decide which state's substantive laws apply. What is the SOL, substantive or procedural? Dumb Bob thinks that it is usually considered procedural, but that this is a gray area.

This is another very complicated state specific issue.

 

Of course! So what he can do or say would depend on what he actually does. If he is self employed and has a highly profitable company he can hardly claim he is picking up curbside trash or standing out alongside the freeway holding a sign and begging for his money. The OP hasn't said what he does in his self employment so we are just basically speculating on [what if] possibilities.

Quite so, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. They might wish they could show that he was making a million a year and get their money but doing so may be quite another thing.

An example is a discussion I saw on a debt collector's forum a few weeks ago. One debt collector said he had a debt he was trying to collect from a doctor who obviously had a lot of money. The debt he was trying to collect was under $10,000 and the doctor lived in a big mansion, had several cars, a big yacht, a couple of airplanes and I don't know what all. The Doc's medical practice was under an LLC, the mansion was owned by some other corporation and all the rest of his goodies right down to his furniture was all owned by other corporations. The Doc owned nothing, or at least so it seemed. The debt collector believed that the Doc owned all those corporations but he couldn't prove it.

All the rest of the debt collectors were telling him that all he had to do was file a suit against those corporations and subpoena their records and the DC could easily prove that the Doc was hiding his assets that way. Sounds like good advice but what would the DC use as a cause of action to sue all those companies? How much would it cost him to do that? And what if it turned out that the DC put out a subpoena for the corporate records of all those corporations and it turned out the Doc actually didn't own any of them? In other words, WHAT IF, WHAT IF, WHAT IF. It can actually turn out to be nothing but an expensive cat and mouse game and the mouse wins.

Quite so, but in every case I've ever seen the plaintiff contends that the defendant defaulted on the terms and conditions of the contract. So what contract? Where is the alleged contract? Let's see the alleged contract to determine what it says and what are it's terms and conditions? Is the copy they bring into court a legible copy? If not then the original must also have been illegible. Who swears under oath that the copy is a true and correct copy of the original.? Who swears under oath that the copies of statements presented to the court are true and correct copies of the original business records? Is there an affidavit of any kind before the court or is the only testimony or evidence before the court that of the plaintiff's attorney? If so then let's get that attorney on the witness stand and see if he has any first hand knowledge about the allegations of the plaintiff. Of course he don't. So who is going to testify as to the truth and completeness of the allegations or the terms of the contract? Oh, the judge rules that he will allow the plaintiff's allegations to stand without evidence or testimony? What rule of procedure or statute permits a judge to allow hear say evidence to be entered into court? Ask the judge that question and the answer will probably be that the judge can decide to do that if he wishes. The response should be, {Exception, Your Honor!} followed by {certify the question for appeal your Honor} That too would most likely be denied. If it is then the next step can be to demand that the judge recuse him/her self. In our hypothetical court that would also probably be denied. Then the next step is to ramp it up a notch at a time until it actually does reach the appellate level.

Think that can't be done? Then think again because the rules of procedure for every state carries exactly those provisions.

It isn't important whether someone can't pay or simply don't want to for whatever reason. What is important is whether or not the defendant knows how to fight back against the lawyers and the plaintiffs and win regardless of what s/he has to do to get the job done. The difference is knowledge and the will to win against all odds, not what if.

 

I think that they do put a clause in their contract stating that the laws of SD shall apply. I'm betting that there is at least one person who has a Citi card and can look on their agreement to see what it says.

What states? And no, I don't expect you to do the research that would be needed to answer that question. My point is that all credit cards are based on a written agreement which is a contract even though it is a unilateral agreement. I argue that courts will universally agree that since a contract exists that the longer statute of limitations on written contracts will be applied. Open-ended or not the agreement between the parties is never oral and all the statutes I have ever seen say that the shorter statute of limitations applies to oral agreements.

 

I live in a state that has a 7 year SOL. The credit card company that sued was in a state that had a 4 year SOL. The creditor sued me just shy of the SOL in MY STATE. We looked into if the creditor can charge high interest by THEIR STATE then you would think the same would apply to THEIR state SOL,which of course then would have put me out of SOL. Not sure if anyone has fought this but it definitely would be a good thing.: ) Woofer

 

To creditors right now every penny counts,so they will sooner or later come after you.And all of the above keep good records.

 

I am self employed too. We are almost 3 years out on Home Depot ($7500), Bank of America ($8000), Amazon ($1500) and two Capital Ones ($6000). The only activity outside of of letters and calls has been summons from CapOne which stopped when I sent them my own set of interrogatories. I guess my point is that you should prepare for the worst but that's not necessarily what will happen. Good luck!

 

Phantom Just make SURE that they have not done sewer service on you and they win by default. ALWAYS check your credit reports . WhenI owed money I checked them almost daily and it was a good thing as one JDB put a phony address on my credit reports and then sent me a summons to that phony address. If I had not been checking out my reports I would never have known about the sewer service. Woofer