Judgment entered · a different clock
A judgment is a status, not the end of the case.
You did not get your day in court. There is a separate motion for that, and it is not an answer.
What that motion generally has to show, what to read in your own court file tonight, and when the door has already shut.
Where the case stands
Answer window closed
Default entered
Collection available to them now
Motion to set aside still open, for now
No numbered steps on this page. There is no step left in the original case, and pretending otherwise wastes the one window still open.
The plan most people arrive with
Why you cannot just tell the judge your side yet.
You want to file the answer now, or call the clerk, or send a letter saying the debt is not yours and nobody ever handed you papers. That was the right plan up to the day the default was entered. After that the case is closed, and a closed case does not take an answer.
A motion to set aside is what reopens it. Until a judge grants that motion the defense does not get heard, however good it is. Brian says it plainly in one of the classes.
“you may have the best defense to a lawsuit… there’s pictures showing that you didn’t do anything wrong but if you let a lawsuit go into default you no longer have a right to bring a defense”
Brian, on video
One class, one real case. A man in Florida found a judgment against him for more than ten thousand dollars, on a lawsuit a tenant had accepted at his address. The clip opens on what Brian tells people to check first.
Brian, on defaults
How to Set Aside a Default Judgment in Debt Collection Cases
Triage
What is worth looking at tonight.
None of this is a step and none of it is in an order. Read the parts that match your case.
Right now
What the judgment is doing while you decide
A judgment does not sit still, and it does not expire next week. Interest and costs are added the whole time it exists, so the figure printed on it is not the figure a collector ends up demanding. It stays collectable for years, and how many years depends on the state.
Once a judgment exists, a collector can generally garnish wages, freeze a bank account, put a lien on property, and ask a court to make you answer questions about your money under oath. None of that is forced on them today. Nothing makes them move, which is why a judgment can sit quiet for years and then act the month you start a new job.
If money is already coming out, our garnishment page covers the objection, which runs on a separate clock of its own. The judgment underneath it is what this page is about.
Not rare
This is what happens to most people
You are not the first person to learn about a lawsuit after it ended, and learning about it this way does not make you careless. Papers get left with a tenant. They get mailed to an address you moved out of years ago. They get handed to somebody who never passes them on. Some people did get them, could not face opening them, and now feel worse about that than about the money.
None of that is a defense by itself. A court asks a narrower question, and the next two sections are about the question it asks.
Free, tonight
The first thing to look at is the proof of service
Your case file is public. Most courts put the docket online, and the clerk’s office will pull the paper file for you. Somewhere in it sits the document where the collector told the court how they served you: who handed what to whom, on what date, at what address. Some of them describe the person served, down to height and hair.
Read it against what you know. Wrong address. Wrong date. Somebody who does not live with you. A description that is not you. Lawyers have a name for papers filed as served that never reached anybody, sewer service, and it means exactly that.
“Always check how you were served”
Brian Parker · How to Set Aside a Default Judgment · 20:14 The file is worth reading for a second reason. It may not say what you assume. Brian describes checking the court records for a client who was sure a default had landed, and finding the court had never entered one, so he filed an answer instead of a motion: “until that order is entered, you can quickly move in and… file your answer”. That was his client’s file. Yours is the only one that decides which document is even possible.
Two parts
What a court generally asks for
A motion to set aside generally has to answer two questions. Why did you not answer the lawsuit? And what would your defense be if the case reopened?
The reasons that generally count for the first are narrow: you were never properly served, there was a mistake, there was fraud, or the court had no power to enter the judgment at all. The second question is the one people skip. A court is being asked to reopen a case it already closed, and it generally wants a reason to believe that reopening it would change something.
“with an affidavit that explains why you didn’t answer and what defense you have. Bad service or valid disputes are powerful reasons. The closer you are to the date of judgment, the better your odds.”
KillDebt show notes · Defaults, Judgments and Garnishments The show notes add one thing worth knowing. Somebody who never saw the lawsuit gets some room on the second question, because describing a defense to a complaint you never read is hard.
Start with who filed it. Most of these cases come from a debt buyer that bought the account, and we have a page on seven of those debt buyers.
Which reasons count, what the motion is called, and what has to be attached to it all change from state to state and from court to court. Your own court’s rules are the ones that govern.
The honest one
How long ago was it?
This is the question that decides most of it. Courts generally treat a motion filed close to the judgment date differently from one filed long after, and the difference is not only in the odds. In some states an early motion is judged under a looser rule and a late one under a strict rule, so the date changes which test you are taking.
The closer to the date the judgment was entered, the better. Far enough past it, the window may be gone.
There is no national number, and this page will not invent one. Rules Searcher pulls the rule from your own state and court, which is the only honest way to answer a deadline question about a real case.
Brian, on timing
Setting Aside a Default Judgment 2.0
Brian names one state's rule in this clip. It is that state's rule, and no other state has to follow it.
From the member forum
Members who found out the same way.
Titles, forum usernames and reply counts. Nothing else from us. The forum is public to read, so go and decide for yourself what these are worth.
Entered Default Judgment
Fab · 2 replies
Hi all! Noob here. In Michigan being sued by LVNV. received no summons, only the court order.
bravegirl · 3 replies
Writ of Garnishment while under appeal
bc2 · 1 reply
Every case is different and results vary. Nothing in these threads predicts anything about yours.
The unsold option
Sometimes the answer is that it is too late.
If the judgment is old enough, the window to reopen it may be gone. No product changes that, and a well drafted motion does not change it either. A court that reopens a judgment years later is generally looking for something out of the ordinary, and your state’s rules define what counts.
If that is where your case sits, the useful questions are different ones. What a collector can take in your state, and what is exempt from them. Whether the amount they are enforcing is right. Whether anything they have done since the judgment broke the law. Check those before you pay anybody, us included.
If this is not quite your situation
- Collection letterA letter, but nothing filed in court yet.
- Just servedA summons. The clock to answer is running.
- Old debtThe debt is years old, or you are not sure it is yours.
- GarnishmentMoney is already coming out of a paycheck or account.
- Helping familyThe papers are not yours. You are helping someone.
You can start on it tonight.
ParkerGPT drafts the motion and the affidavit from what your own court file says.
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