Finding Details Regarding a Judgement

[Anonymous]

About 10 years, a credit card company secured a default judgement against me.  I had a few dollars in a bank account (no where nearly enough to settle it) which they took and I closed.  I haven't had a bank account in my name since. A couple years ago, I had a fire, and the paperwork for the judgement was destroyed. I checked all three credit reports and nothing is there relating to this judgement. I've searched state and county court online databases and came up with nothing.

I live in a state where judgements are active for 20 years, so I know it's out there, I just can't get any information.  Also, my memory is a little hazy, but there might be a second judgment as well which came down about the same time. How do I find out who has these judgements against me?

[gdale6]

Look in your previous state if you lived elsewhere back then also check the state the creditor is incorporated in.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your reply.  At the time of the judgement, I was planning on declaring bankruptcy,  so I didn't pay very close attention to the papers, but if the court was out of state, I definitely would have remembered that.

[RobertEG]

You can either contact the judgment creditor and request info from them (which is likely not preferred), or you can continue your own research of court records to attempt to locate the public record info.

Perphaps you can contact a vendor of public record search information, such as Lexis-Nexis, and hire  them to conduct a public records search.....

[Anonymous]

Judgments are good for ten years. It can be extended for another ten years. And another... Most CA don't do that because by then it has lost interest in you. Also, there is a cost to file for an extention. You can try to get a copy online by going to that court's website. Information stays on the website, for those courts that have one, forever. Lastly, check your annual CR for a soft pull by the CA. They will sometime keep an eye on you. If nothing there and it has been ten years it should not be reporting.

[Anonymous]

OP. What state are you in ?

[JVille]

Excellent question, something not right here! You could also pay a fee to a Title Company to do a Judgement Search. The Judgement if it still exists would be filed against your name in the state and county that you lived at the time. Is there nothing to indicate a Judgement in any of the 3 Credit Bureau reports?

[Anonymous]

Here in NY, money judgments are good for 20 years and judgment holder does not need to renew after 10 years. It has a full 20 year term then expires 

other states that have 20 years, the holder has to renew after 10. Hopefully OP is in one of these states and if he finds judgment, it will not have been renewed 

[Anonymous]

I am in NJ.

[Anonymous]

I have about 7 different creditors with debt from the same time frame.  Everything has past the SOL for taking me to court and it's all off my CR. The last thing I want to do is to reach out to everyone and possibly say the wrong thing.

Lexis-Nexis, from what I've read, most likely should have my judgement info.  I have found a school library that's about an hour away that may have public access to their Lexis-Nexis Academic database.  I'm looking into.  My only concern is that there are so many different flavors of Lexis-Nexis, all with varying levels of information access, and I'm not sure what Lexis-Nexis Academic gets me. I do qualify for free legal aid, so perhaps they can access the necessary database.

Paperwork can pretty easily be destroyed or misplaced. It's kind of ridiculous to have to go through all of this just to find out who your creditor(s) are.  I can see how removing judgements from credit reports was a bit of a win for consumers, but, just because they don't show up doesn't make them go away, and, by removing them, it makes it incredibly difficult and/or costly for people in my position to track these creditors down.