I Am Thinking About Bankruptcy But Really Don’t Want To. What Should I Do?
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Author: Q: I took out a Loan from Beneficial in 1999, Defaulted on it in 2001, and They Got a Default Judgment Against me in 2002. They were Garnishing My Wages But I Quit the Job and Never Paid the Judgment Off. They were Recently Granted an Order of Revivor. The Judgment was Revived. I Owed Them a Little Over $2,200. They Now Say I Owe $7,900. They Said No to a Settlement. I Am Thinking About Bankruptcy But Really Don’t’ Want To. What Should I Do?
A: Don’t rush out to file bankruptcy. You’re not yet at that phase, based on all the circumstances you’ve described. You mentioned that besides this judgment, you only have $2,000 worth of “bad debt” on your credit report, along with an car loan that has a balance of $12,000. It doesn’t sound like the car loan was delinquent, so let’s just deal with the main issue – that dreaded judgment.
Before now, I had never heard of an “order of reviver.” But I did some homework and learned that this is also known as a “reviver of judgment” or “reviver of dormant judgment.”
Basically, this extends the life of the original judgment for a set period of time, usually the same length of time that was noted in the first judgment.
Since Beneficial, or its current collection agents are not willing to settle in any way, start by seeing if you can get that reviver order reversed or cancelled outright. Based on my preliminary research, there seem to be a few defenses you can offer to the court to essentially block an order of reviver. One such defense is if the statute of limitations on a judgment has expired. So your first step is to find out what the statute of limitations is on judgments in your state. I do not know where you live. So I could not look for that information or contact legal experts in your state. Additionally, you should know that in many states a revived judgment is chalked full of court costs, legal fees, late penalties and additional interest charges dating back to the first order. That’s why your bill has swelled so much.
My best advice is to bone up about the law in your state and try to attack that judgment. Don’t agree to pay anything else to this company just yet. If you can get some low-cost legal help that would be advisable. If it turns out that the order stands, then that’s the time to go back once more – this time to a supervisor – and try to negotiate with Beneficial. If that doesn’t work, turn to a non-profit credit counseling agency. Again, don’t file bankruptcy until you’ve exhausted all your options.
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