Hi All, I'm a newbie here who has spent the last couple of weeks lurking aorund and reading all I can as I prepare to embark on the credit repair journey. First off, let me just say wow! There is more information packed into these forums than I could have ever imagined when I first found it. With that being said... Here is my deal. My CR's have some lates and charge offs on them, but I feel like I have the ammo to attack these with the CRA's now. What I'm not sure about is two judgement's I have on there. I had a situation a couple of years ago where a friend and I rented a townhouse and were both on the lease. About 1/2 way through the lease it was becoming very apparent that we were going in opposite directions. I was working a 9-5 and spending most of my time w/ my girlfriend and he was quitting jobs and staying up all night partying. (let me cut to the chase) My girlfriend and I start looking for apartments and happen to find the perfect place, decide it's too good to pass up and take it. I go home and tell my roommate and he is kind of PO'd about the short notice and I understand. This was mid-February at the time. I explain that my half of the rent is paid through the end of the month and that I will go to the rental office and pay my half for March as well to give him time to find a new roommate (which I did do). I also told him if he couldn't find anyone in that 6 weeks to let me know and I would try to help either $ wise or if I knew anyone who was looking. Well he finds a new roommate the next week and everything is cool. I see him a couple of times over the next couple of months to come back and get a few things I forgot etc... Well my buddy and I lose contact over the next year or so until I go to apply for a loan and get turned down for a negative judgment or public record. I pull my CR see that I have a $2600 judgment against me via the townhouse rental agency. I call them screaming like a lunatic to find out that my ex-roommate and his new roommate thought it would be cool if they just didn't pay any rent for four months and get evicted. They then made an attempt to pay, but guess what, roommates check bounced. So of course I'm kicking myself now for not having my name taken off the lease, but I thought I could trust this lifelong "friend". I guess not since now I have this judgement on my CR that also references a bounced check. I did request and investigation last year saying that I never bounced a check to this company and if they or the bank could provide one with my sig or account # on it I would be happy to pay it (no brainer since the roommate bounced the check). Well my inquiry came back as verified somehow. Do I have any hope for having this removed? I was never served with the suit because I had moved, but I was still techinically on the lease... The other judgement is from the same company due to a situation few months earlier. We got behind on the rent, they filed, we met them in court the day of the suit and paid them with a cashiers check and signed paperwork saying that they were dropping the suit. Well apparently they added this little goody on to the CR's when my roommate screwed them the second time around. Sorry for the novel, I'll be shocked if anyone actually reads through this whole rambling saga. I'm getting ripped just thinking about the whole thing again....
Hi, Sorry I can't offer any advise. I did however have the same thing happen to me several years ago. I was a tenant at will, gave my 30 day notice, and paid in full before I left. My other two rommies stopped paying and never got another roommate. Hence I now have a joint 2K judgement or my credit report. I'm lucky though it only shows up on my Experion credit file. I'm interested to see if anyone has any advise as well. Regards, Ed
If you were never served, you may be able to have the judgments vacated. Improper service is grounds for vacating a judgment. Unless you are legally astute, or your state courts provide the assistance and forms you need, consult an attorney who does work in the credit/consumer or collections area. It cost me about $400. Worth it IMHO. breeze
You can also call the court who rendered the judgment and get information (use the case # on your report if there is one). Then you can speak with someone in their legal aid dept. and they'll tell you exactly what to do. EXACTLY! That is what I did when I had a judgment on my report. I contacted them and this great guy gave me the best advice on how to clear the matter up. Told me step by step how to proceed, what documents I needed, where to find them, etc.
There should be records on file with the county clerk concerning the default judgement. Included in the file will be the method of service. I would check that first because improper service could be grounds for vacating the judgement. From your account of the situation, it wouldn't surprise me if there's nothing in your file concerning service.
thanks for the info everyone, I figured others had to have encountered similar scenarios before. I had thought about going to the courthouse to pull up all of the pertinent info, but I was concerned that they may ask why I wanted the info. If I answer "well I was never served" I was worried they might go "well here, now you have" or something along those lines... This would be a typical example of my luck with law enforcement.
BTW, the girlfriend that I moved in with is now my wife and we are looking into buying a home, hence the credit repair journey. Just thought I'd share that the situation wasn't a total disaster
The info that you need is public record. You and everyone else are entitle to look at it and there is no reason why anyone should ask why.
