WOWWWWWW - Motion to Vacate - Only $20 fee!

[diabla]

I had been waivering on filing a motion to vacate an old judgment that somehow skipped around my BK filing at the time.  I asked my BK lawyer about doing it for me, and he said he charged $350 to take care of it.  The judgment was only for about $700, and it's set to drop off my report next June anyway, so I figured, why pay 50% of it, just let it drop!

Well, on a whim, I decided to check the fees myself - previously I'd checked and apparently I was checking the wrong court (circuit), and was given a fee of $150.  Much better, but still not really worth it, IMO.

Reading my credit report again, I noticed that the judgment was out of the local district court, so I called them and they told me TWENTY DOLLARS to come in file the motion.  It would be on the docket NEXT WEEK.  I was shocked! I told the clerk to please repeat that, because my lawyer was charging $350 so I expected it to be a lot higher. She laughed and said, nope, twenty dollars!

Lawyers are cleaning up, this is ridiculous.

I will be doing this today!

[scarrollprint]

awesome on being able to do it yourself.

Hopefully the judge is nice and loves to vactate paid judgements!

[Shogun]

That will be $20 well spent.  Congrats!

[diabla]

Exactly, even if it fails (although the odds are very high that it will pass) its only $20.  Hopefully someone else will think to check their courthouse themselves before they pay the lawyer to do it.  

[Anonymous]

Good intel.

So I have a question on the entire "motion to vacate" or what some of the courts here call "motion to set aside"

I've succesfully done this a couple of times.

Both of these were debts that were owed from years ago, and went to judgement. I had my attorney prepare the paperwork to "set aside" or "vacate" them. Then I got the original creditor to agree to accept $xxx.xx to sign off on the paperwork.

But it would appear from here, that you are suggesting, that you can take a judgment that has been satisfied (paid) and file the motion yourself to have it "set aside". Is that correct?

I'm assuming that if you filed that, either you or the court would have to mail something to the creditor allowing them to respond, and if they don't respond.. then most likely the judge just goes for it??

Thanks for any help.

[diabla]

My situation might be somewhat different, although everything I've read says that the original plaintiff is notified, but I'm not sure about them having to agree to it because the decision is up to the judge.  However, in MY case, the judgment was entered AFTER I filed BK 13, and according to my atty, it never should have been allowed to go forward because there was a stay in place.  The judgment was paid through my case payments, then later that BK was dismissed and I filed a Ch. 7 and just to be safe, included it again.  It is the Ch. 7 atty that said this judgment never should have happened, and advised me that it could be set aside.

Since its paid, AND it never should have been allowed, AND its under a BK, I don't see how or why the plaintfiff would or could object.  Seems like they wouldn't even need to be notified but I'm not sure about the process.  I could see if I owed them money and they had to agree to the motion based on whatever arrangement we made.

[Anonymous]

Gotcha. That makes sense.

I'm wondering how this would work in a case where it shows the judgement as "satified" or "paid". If you could go in and file a motion to set it aside or vacate it.

I'm sure they would have to notify the creditor. But I'd be willing to bet that as long as it was paid, they would waste the manpower responding to something like that. Or even care if it got vacated...right?

[diabla]

That's what I've read from others who have had those types of judgments vacated.  If its paid, then the plaintiff tended to not even respond or object.   You've got to figure, why would they pay a lawyer to come to court (or take their own time) to just say "okay", when they've gotten paid?  Unless they hold some typ eof personal vendetta against you.  I've been reading a lot of lawyer forums and the consensus seems to be that Paid/Satisifed/Released judgments are quick and easy to vacate.  I can't even see why a creditor would object if yo uwanted a payment agreement, after all, the purpose of the judgment is to get you to pay!