Negotiating a judgment - am I being realistic?

[rMayer]

I have one last judgement on my credit report for around $6500 for an apartment lease I broke years and years ago. I sent them an offer for 3k in cash to call it a day. They came back and said $4500. When I asked one of my friends who is a bankruptcy lawyer he told me I should have came in even lower and that I should wait if they refuse my offer. Am I being realisitic? This is the last bad thing on my creidt report and I just want to get it off. Should I come back and go lower? Seems like they'll definetly not take anything lower now. 

[Anonymous]

Judgements if Im not mistaken are handeld by the courts, the amount they sued you for is the amount you have to pay unless the courts change the ruling, either way they stay on your CR for 7 years however a paid / satisfied judgement is better than unpaid.

[rMayer]

Well this is being handled by a law firm, so they will negotiate despite it being listed on my CR. And in NJ you can remove any satisfied judgements. I've removed 3 so far. 

[MrsCHX]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Judgements if Im not mistaken are handeld by the courts, the amount they sued you for is the amount you have to pay unless the courts change the ruling, either way they stay on your CR for 7 years however a paid / satisfied judgement is better than unpaid.

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Not entirely true. Yes, you can still negotiate a settlement with the original creditor. Yes, it will reflect as "settled" vs paid as agreed/in full. 

If you check out the rebuilding section there are several of us who got our judgements excluded early. Mine were scheduled to drop 6/2017 and 5/2018. That doesn't stop you from owing the money...just gets it off your report. Keep working on the negotiations and even if it's 'settled' on your reports you could likely get it off before the 7 years are up. You should have come in very low. Like 20-30% and negotiated from there. However, tell them again that it's all you have. You had to scrape/borrow/yadda yadda to get the $3k. Tell them you can maybe borrow another $500 (or something like that). 

Also don't talk to a frontline rep. Always ask for a manager/supervisor.

[rMayer]

Yeah I was able to get my others off once they were satisfied by just disputing them with the CUs so I'm optomistic of that! Thank you. I'll call them back! 

[RobertEG]

Once a party has a judgment and it remains unpaid for a reasonable period, the judgment creditor can then go back to the judgment court and request an additional order from the court that will permit taking of specific assets as forced payment of the judgment ("writ of satisfaction"), such as garnishment of pay.

Having a court determination in their pocket both that the debt is legit and that it be paid, the judgment creditor is in a stronger position to demand the full payment.

Are you suggesting, after their counter-offer which was between your offer and the full amount, that you now offer even less than your original offer?

If the judgment is still enforceable, that may lead to filing for a writ of satisfaction for the full amount.