CA - A Judgement Against Me

[schrodingerscat]

What is the name of your state? I live in California. One of the credit agencies, Equifax, states that there is a judgment against me for $11,399 that has been filed on December 1, 2004 as a public record. What is a judgment and how does it affect me besides residing in my credit history? How do I find out where the judgment came from and where I can get the details about this judgment? I never received any notification regarding the judgment; I was only able to find out about it after running my credit history. Please don't hesitate to ask me if you need any more details.What is the name of your state?

[Texas Pooh]

A judgment means that at some point you were sued and the plaintiff was awarded a judgment against you. If you didn't respond to the lawsuit, a default judgment was entered against you.

A judgment creditor is entitled to collect the judgment against you by seizing assets, putting a lien against your property (which I see has occured from another post), garnishing wages, etc.

You need to go to the county courthouse and do a search under your name. You'll find the lawsuit file and can copy all the relevant documents. In particular, you'll need to see how the plaintiff served you to determine if the service is valid before you can determine if you have grounds to contest the judgment.

[Chien]

TP is right about the meaning and implications of a judgment, but going to the “county courthouse” may not be easy. There are more than 50 counties. Without knowing where you live, some counties have only a few courthouses and some have more than 20.

Try using this site to get to the central court for your county.
[url]http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/find.htm[/url]

All court sites enable online searching by case number (and that may be in the Equifax report). Almost all now enable searching by name as well. You might try checking this way to narrow your search. And, while I would agree that reviewing the whole file is advisable, you can also purchase per-page copies by mail at a relatively nominal cost, if the court is remote.

[Texas Pooh]

thanks for the clarification, Chien - your advice will certainly speed up OP's search!