Re: The Plain! I was served, and the summons says Mandatory Arbitration and the atty I talked to said it is the same as going to court and if I don't show up then the creditor will automatically be granted a judgement against me. The attorney I consulted with made it clear that arbitration is for the Creditor and saves them the cost of a trial. I was served the summons 3/29/01 and my attorney requested validation approx., 4/7/01, but to date my attorney says the creditor's attorney has not gotten back to him and any court date won't be set until he does. tml
Re: The Plain! I was served, and the summons says Mandatory Arbitration and the atty I talked to said it is the same as going to court and if I don't show up then the creditor will automatically be granted a judgement against me. The attorney I consulted with made it clear that arbitration is for the Creditor and saves them the cost of a trial. That's exactly what I thought. Arbritration is for the creditor and saves them the cost of a trial. And yes, that would be the logical deduction that in the event you fail to show up for the arbitration, they automatically are granted a judgement. It's one of those situations where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. So what you need to figure out is what are you going to say if you go to the arbritration? Do you have something worthwile to say? Do you have some valid proof that you do not owe the debt? If not, then what are you going to get out of going to the arbitration, a red face? I thought so. The arbitratration process is not for your benefit unless you can throw a major hitch in their git-along. I'm guessing you don't have any magic bullets to fire at the fire-breathing dragon which will slay him, right? So why waste your time with their foolishness? All you are likely to do is to lose anyway. What I would want to do is to let them get their judgement and then once it's filed go to the county clerk's office and see the court record. Check it out for errors and then try to see how you can go back on them for their errors. What we are finding is that at least 98% of all these judgement cases have reverseable errors in their filings. In fact, I might even consider telling them right up front that you are not going to show up for their silly kangaroo kourt. They just might be much more prone to make errors if they know you are not going to argue about it. It's up to you. You have to decide what you are going to do based on what you have to fight with. An attorney isn't going to do anything for you if you can't give him some ammo to fight with. I was served the summons 3/29/01 and my attorney requested validation approx., 4/7/01, but to date my attorney says the creditor's attorney has not gotten back to him and any court date won't be set until he does. Well, looks like your attorney is heading in the right direction demanding validation. I'd ask him where he thinks he can go with it in the end. Does he think he can beat the whole deal? If he thinks he can, then by all means let him do his thing. You just have to gather all the info you can and make the best decision based on what you have to go with. I'd sure give any attorney I hired every chance in the world to do whatever he can for you before I went off on some tangent. You just need his opinion on where he thinks he can go with it.
Re: The Plain! Bill - I am not sure what you mean by there is no applicable statute of limitations. Is this the SOL on the judgement once it has been made? Or are you referring to the checks? Also, I hope this whole step doesn't even get to the point of the court and making any summary judgements.. I'd rather avoid this altogether, so I'd rather think of ways of avoiding all that then what I would do once I am there..
Re: The Plain! There is no statute of limitations on the amount of time that you have to discover reverseable error in their court filings, briefs or motions. To illustrate, let us suppose that you have a judgement against you. You go down to the courthouse and you look through the court file on the case ans discover that what they provided to the court as "validation" or proof that you owe the debt was a copy of the document you signed whipped off on their handy-dandy office copier. The document was about half unreadable, but more importantly it was never certified as being a true copy of the original You know it is not a certified copy because it bears no sworn affidavit testifying to the fact that it is a true copy of the original nor does it carry any sort of certification seal by notary or court clerk. You have discovered reverseable error and although it might be 50 years after the fact of the court date, you may still go back to court and get it reversed on error. The reason this is so is that you were denied your right to due process of law. Yes, I realize you would like to put an end to the matter before they ever get a judgement on you. But looking at the probability of that happening, it's rather slim. Even if you discover a reverseable error, you would not want to raise the issue in court or make objection because they could then amend their errors and you would then have no chance to get it reversed later. Opening your mouth in court over such issues is not in your best interests. If you do, you will only shoot yourself in the foot.
