As I understand it, an unpaid judgement will never go away from your credit report, and more importantly, depending on where you live, exposes his bank accounts, paychecks, etc to garnishment (laws vary by state as to what actions a creditor with a judgement can take, but in most states, wage garnishment at the least is possible). However, I don't know what the legal status of a judgement is if you're no longer in the state that the judgement was obtained in (ie, if the judgement was obtained in one state, they may not be able to garnish a paycheck in a different state) - someone else with greater legal knowledge here might be able to chime in on this.
A paid judgement still shows as a judgement, which is about as negative a black mark as you can get on your CR, but it will drop off eventually (I think it is a 7 year drop off from date of payment). Pretty sure an unpaid judgement is always considered "current" (in other words, the FICO score hit never goes down as the judgement ages), but a paid judgement acts like other FICO negatives and it's impact decreases over time until it drops off completely.
He may be able to turn it in and pay the remainder after auction, but you'll almost certainly realize more from the sale if you sell it as a private party and pay the remainder after that. Contact the OC, they may be willing to negotiate and have the judgement dismissed if you'll pay the amount owed in full - however, this is the best you're likely to be able to get, and as they already have the judgement, they may not negotiate (but you do have the leverage of offering to pay in full rather than having them have to skiptrace your BF down and go through the legal hassle of garnishment).
Not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt (or three).
Message Edited by SanDiegoEngineer on
01-16-2008 06:44 PM
