Defending Debt Collection Lawsuits

Mistakes you should avoid

Mostly, people face problems with the lawsuits filed against them by debt collectors. The majority of people become so panicky that they make various mistakes while defending themselves against the collections lawsuit. Moreover, collection agencies are hard to handle. Thus, it becomes important for you to know how not to defend a debt collection lawsuit or the mistakes that you should avoid while defending yourself.

How not to defend debt collection lawsuits

First of all, in order to avoid making any kind of mistakes while defending yourself against a collection agency filing, it is important for you to know about the debt laws in your state. In order to do that you can take the help of an attorney. It is the lawyer, who can help you with better understanding of the laws related to debt collection, how the collection agencies are supposed to act and what are they prohibited from doing and what your options are as a debtor. While handling a court case, it is also better to get help from your legal adviser so that you cannot go wrong in any way.

You should know that basically a lawsuit is started by filing it with the court. Now, the FDCPA or the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act prohibits the debt collectors from filing the case in a court which is situated far away from the place of your residence. If this happens, you have the option to file a claim in the court and also file complaints against the collection agency with the Federal Trade Commission or the FTC and the State’s Attorney General. The lawyer can also help you in this.

Then after the case is filed, you are supposed to be served with a summons, to which you are required to respond. In this case too, it is better to take the help of your legal advisor. Attorneys are in general more experienced in dealing with such situations and answering to the summons in the right way. You should never make the mistake of attempting to defend yourself by not answering to the lawsuit.

Another mistake that most of the debtors make is that they didn’t have any account with the collection agency. But this is a silly thing to argue about and should be avoided anyhow while defending yourself against the collection lawsuit. You should know that debts can be sold off to debt buyers (collection agencies) by the creditor. If the debt buyer had legally bought the debt from the creditor, the agency has the right to try and collect the dues from you or even file a case against you (debtor).

In addition, you should not make the mistake of not checking with your credit report before going to the court. It is extremely important for you to be aware of the state of all of your accounts and this particular account against which the case has been filed. There are many such cases where case has been filed by collection agencies against accounts which were well beyond the Statute of Limitations or SOL. The SOL is the time limit within which the creditor or the collection agency can sue you for not paying off the debt. If you find out that the SOL on the debt against which the collection agency is suing you have expired, discuss it with your legal advisor and take the necessary steps to prove this in court. The collection agencies (and the creditors too) cannot pursue any lawsuit against you and win the same after the SOL on a debt has expired.

So, you will have to keep in mind all of these things while defending yourself against a debt collection lawsuit.

Guest post by Rebecca