New here....collections question

[Sunshine222]

I am trying to improve my credit and save for a house.  I am not yet legally divorced but have been legally separated from my husband for three years and am in the process of a divorce.  He was/is bad with money.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, he had charged up two accounts with both if our names on them, failed to pay them, and they went into collections.  I didn't know about them until collections calls started coming.  Anyhow, I am trying to figure out how to deal with these now.  I am hopeful that in our divorce decree they will be assigned to him, but can't guarantee that will be the case, and I understand that even if they are assigned to him they will still show on my credit report.  For the past three years I have refuses to do anything about them because I was angry and felt they were his responsibility since I didn't know anything about them.  Now I am starting to feel like if they are just going to bite me in the behind and make it impossible to buy a home, maybe I need to suck it up and do something.

One account is with Midland Funding and is for just over 7K.  The DOFD is August 2009 and the SOL in my state is 6 years.  The other is with CACH - LLC and is for just under 3K.  The DOFD is November 2010.  

The questions:  I was thinking of trying to settle them.   If I do, how much should I offer?   If I settle one, will that "wake up" the other CA and make them more likely to sue?  If I try to settle, will that make the CA I contact more likely to sue me than if I don't contact them?  Can they sue me even if the debt gets assigned to my ex in the divorce?  Or would it be better just to save money and keep my fingers crossed that they never sue?  The big one should go off my credit report right around the time that I would be ready to buy a house and the SOL will be up on it in about a year.  The smaller one I will probably have to do something with because it still has quite a while to be on my credit report.  My ex makes less money than I do and is terrible about managing it so I'm not holding out much hope that he will reliably pay on these.  It will definitely be a burden if I have to pay the whole amount on both.  Anyone had luck with a pay for delete with either of these agencies?  I've heard they are kind of tough to come by.  Do you generally have to pay the full amount for that to happen?

Thanks in advance.  Sorry, lots of questions!  Any that you answer would be helpful.

[tyhollin]

It is really tough to say what the best choice is. Both collection accounts have a large enough balance to make it worth suing over. However there is a lot more for a collection agency to consider when deciding to persue litigation. 

I have a very large collection hanging over my shoulder, about $22k that is about 4 months from my states SOL so I have thought a lot about this in the past few years. First off, CA's can and will check your credit report when determining how to collect from you. If you pay off a large debt with one collection account it is possible that the other collection agency will see that and assume if you have money to pay one then you have money to pay them as well. You can pull your credit reports from annualcreditreport.com and see if, when and how often either of these collection agencies pull your report in the last two years. Usually it will be listed under soft inquiries that are only shared with you. 

Keep in mind that, dispite what many websites and people may tell you, the amount of money you owe them does NOT matter as much as how likely the collection agency feels you will be able to pay if they sue you. They like to sue neive people who have a good job they can garnish from, large bank accounts they can levy on and/ or property they can take from you. It costs $0.40 to $0.50 on the dollar for a collection agency to sue you whereas it only cost $0.05 - $0.10 on the dollar to collect via telephone and mail so it's safe to assume a collection agency will most likely make sure they have a good way to collect from you before ever suing you. 

In my personal opinion, unless you have the money to call and settle both accounts, it's best to take an offensive stance with your collection accounts and wait it out quietly under the cover of the thousands of delinquent accounts that will never pay them. Don't do anything that would paint a target on your chest. Don't dispute the account information, don't talk to them in any way shape or form. Be careful about your assets and watch what goes on your credit report. Applying for a home now could show them you have intent to purchase something of value that they could get their hands on at a later date and may trigger a lawsuit. Wait it out and hope they both die a natural death... 

This is only my opinion so please do what you feel is best for yourself and best of luck to you.  

[Sunshine222]

Thank you, that is good advice.  Sounds like you are in the hope stretch, I'm hoping all stays quiet for the next 4 months and you can put that behind you!