Four situations · pick yours
You are holding somebody else’s paperwork.
Four different people read this page. Only one of the four situations is yours, so start there and skip the rest. One line holds for all four: a debt does not become yours because you are family.
- They were served and cannot face it
- They died owing money
- They are elderly, on a fixed income
- The collector called you about their debt
Each row jumps to its own section. Nobody should scroll through three situations that are not theirs.
Before the four
What you can do, and what only they can do.
You can do the reading, the gathering and the tracking. Signing and filing in another adult’s case is a different thing, and in most courts it is not yours to do. Courts decide who may appear. A power of attorney does not settle that question, and we cannot tell you what your state allows one adult to do for another.
You
Read, gather, track, sit with them
- Read the summons and find the date the court wants an answer by.
- Gather every page, the envelope included, and keep them in one place.
- Write down each call: date, time, name, company, and what was said.
- Sit beside them while they read it. Nobody should read this alone.
Only they
Sign, file, and appear
- Sign the answer. Their name goes on it, in their own hand.
- File it with the court by the date printed on their summons.
- Stand up on the hearing day, with an interpreter if they need one.
- Ask the clerk how their court handles an interpreter. Courts differ.
The account is theirs. The case is theirs. The filings carry their name.
Served
If they were served and cannot face it
Fear of a courtroom is the ordinary reaction of somebody who has never been in one. The helper’s work starts with the date. Find it on the summons and put it where you both see it. Gather every page, including the envelope it came in. Read it with them, out loud if that helps, one paragraph at a time.
Look up the company suing them as well. That is helper work, and most of these cases come from a debt buyer that bought the account. We have a page on seven of the debt buyers.
They sign. They file. They appear. What an answer has to do is on the just-served page, and you can read it before they do.
Died
If they died owing money
A relative’s debt generally belongs to their estate, and not to the people who survive them. Family members are generally not personally responsible for a dead relative’s debts out of their own money.
Some people do share the responsibility. A joint account owner. A cosigner. A husband or wife in a community property state, or a spouse or parent in a state whose law makes them cover certain healthcare costs. Being an authorized user on somebody’s card is not one of those. Which of them describes you is a question of state law, and we cannot answer it for you.
A collector may contact you once to find out who is handling the estate, and while doing that they are not allowed to mention the debt. A collector who tells you the debt is now yours because you are family has said something worth writing down: the date, the name, the company, and the words they used.
Elderly
If they are elderly and on a fixed income
The fear under this one is usually the same. They are going to take her Social Security.
Social Security money in a bank account is generally protected from garnishment under federal law. The warning that travels with the protection matters as much: keep it in an account of its own. Money from other sources mixed into the same account puts the protection at risk, and then somebody has to prove which dollars were which.
The papers that show what her month actually looks like are already in your hands. The statement from the care facility. The bank statements. The tax return. A stranger cannot gather those and you can.
If money is already leaving an account or a paycheck, start on the garnishment page. What has to be filed there, and by when, differs by state.
Called you
If the collector called you
Federal law limits who a collector may talk to about somebody else’s debt. The list of people they may discuss it with is short, and family members are not on it.
“And to any person means not just you. Communications to your spouse, your attorney, to your family, neighbors or employer all count as violations of the law.”
So the call you took turned you into a witness. Write down the date and the time, the name the caller gave, the company, the number on your screen, and what they said about the debt. Keep the voicemail. Do it while you still have the words.
Brian, on who they may call
The FDCPA Communication Rules Are Your Most Powerful Weapon Against Debt Collectors
Cosigned
If somebody cosigned
A cosigner is a defendant in their own right. If your name is on the loan, you are not the helper in this case. You are the person being sued, with your own date on your own summons, and the five other situations on this site apply to you directly. Start from what has already happened to you.
You may owe nothing at all.
Some people reading this page need one sentence and nothing else, so here it is again. A debt does not become yours because you are family. If you did not sign for the account, and you do not own it with them, a collector calling you about it is calling the wrong person. Spouses in some states are the exception, and that is the paragraph further up.
If that was your question, you have your answer. Close the page. Nothing here asks you to buy something to learn it.
If this is not quite your situation
You can start on it tonight.
The membership is theirs. What you can do is sit beside them through all of it.
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