judgements

[egul105]

I am trying to collect a debt from someone and may have to go to court. I live in TX s I probably won't get the money back since you can't garnish wages. Does anyone know:

a) what can you do to collect a judgment debt in TX
b) how negatively does a judgment affect you, your credit, etc?

Thanks!

[SinkingFast]

We were sued once over the Earnest Money deposit on the sale of a home. The buyers backed out and we decided we'd keep their Earnest Money deposit. They didn't like that and sued us over it. 18 months later, we both grew weary with the law suit, the attnys were winning based on fees, so both parties decided to settle and split the money. Done.

Years later, CCS, a Credit investigations services company, opened an office in the town where all the legal wrangling took place. This was after we'd already bought and sold a house in one state. Bought another house in another state. And I can't even remember how many cars by this point. CCS went to the Court House, found the claim for the law suit, their investigator did not trace the suit to its conclusion to see it was settled, and entered a $1000 Judgement into our Credit Histories with all 3 CRA's.

We went to buy a car. Had significant down payment. Only wanted to borrow $6K on a car worth much more. The bank was not going to lend us the money to buy the car because of the $1K Judgement in our Credit History.

Since no Judgement really existed, it was a simple matter for us to clear up. Our old attny's office faxed Court Certed docs to the bank who went ahead and gave us the loan. We then sent copies of the Court Certed docs to the CRA's disputing the Judgement and the Judgement was removed.

A real Judgement can stop a loan dead in it's tracks. It can prevent a borrower from obtaining most any credit until the Judgement is satisfied. It's a morals issue with Creditors. If you skipped out on a debt you owed elsewhere and didn't pay, what's to prevent you from doing the same with us?

If a real Judgement does exist, it's gonna take way more than what we had to do to get it removed. Even after the person pays the Creditor the amount owed, the debtor most likely will have to hire an attny to have the Judgement removed at the Court House.