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My friend had her car repossessed in 2001/2002 while in the State of Michigan. She recently moved to Florida over a year ago to find employment. She received a garnishment letter from whatever company is handling the debt today that an order will go into effect within 28 days. She has not received anything until now, what recourse does she have to invalidate the order?

4 Comments »

1. 

   If they got a judgment in court against her, they can have decades to collect the debt. It’s not a statute of limitations question. That only applies to filing lawsuits. In California, you have 10 years to collect a debt, but can easily renew that for 10 more. Most states have a similar rule.

   She must have been sued because they won’t do a garnishment without that.

   She needs to take care of business. The most she can do, depending on state law, is say her required bill payments (minimums) are too great and they can’t garnish the money. They will then lower or eliminate it. The garnishment paperwork should tell her that.

   She should have taken care of this long ago.

   Comment by Libraryanna — May 26, 2011 @ 11:27 am

2. 

   Once they sell the car, the MICHIGAN statute of limitations controls how long they had to sue her to collect the deficit. Because she had moved to Florida without informing the creditor of her new address, service by publication was used to conduct the lawsuit, which she lost by default. This is only a technical point, because even if she had appeared in court, she would still have lost. After the judgement is issued, it is valid for 10 years, and most states allow at least one 10 year renewal. She doesn’t have ANY recourse to invalidate the order. Even if she were able to have the default judgement set aside, she would be personally served a new lawsuit IN the courtroom. At best, she would delay the garnishment by a few weeks, and they would add the legal fees for the extra lawsuit.

   Comment by STEVEN F — May 26, 2011 @ 11:27 am

3. 

   I don’t know what the answer is, and I doubt if she has any recourse since she still has debt on the vehicle, but I wanted to congratulate you on something. This is probably the best question I have seen on this board.

   Comment by bchiser — May 26, 2011 @ 11:27 am

4. 

   The length of time that a judgment can be enforced varies from state to state, but in most cases it is significantly longer than seven years. For example, in several states, judgments are valid for twenty years from the date of entry, plus they can be renewed twice if the judgment creditor chooses to renew them, meaning that the judgment can actually be collected for up to sixty years. Again, the length of time that judgments are valid varies from state to state, so if she think that she may be reaching the outside limit for the collection of judgments in her state, I would encourage her to consult with an attorney.

   Comment by mrs_emtp — May 26, 2011 @ 11:27 am

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