I am trying to help a friend, and I am not sure how to proceed. Default judgement was obtained in 2000 for an old Sears account, he did not respond to the summons. The collection attny did nothing for the first few years, and has now started to try and collect, recently filing for garnishment where he used to work, he got a copy of the filing in the mail. He is now self-employed, which I understand is harder to garnish, but doable. My question for him is, He recently received notice from the collection attorney that the creditor collection agency that previously held the judgement, has sold this account to another collection agency. However, once a judgement has been obtained, can it be re-opened when the creditor sells or assigns the account to another agency? They have the disclosure at the bottom of the notice of selling of the account for 30 days to validate, etc. Is this a possible opening for him to have this dismissed if they can't validate? Would he have to file a motion to set aside the judgement, and if so, how, or request for validation and then proceed from there? Thanks so much for any input. He has a lot of problems, and I am trying to help him out. If anyone has any info on garnishment of self-employed people, I would be interested in that for him also. He is a contracted person, self-employed. State is Georgia.
I don't know anything about vacating the judgement. It is foolish to not respond to a summons. He can request validation, and they can send him a copy of the judgement as validation. This would normally be his opportunity to dispute if they are trying to collect on the wrong party, and the judgement is against a different person.
