Claiming Bankruptcy In Illinois
question about small claims?
my boyfriends mom took money from his bank account to “pay bills”. she never paid them and she put bills in his name so she could ffile for bankruptcy. all together she owes us about 4,200$. we filed a small claim against her, and she was ordered to pay it all in 10 days. she says she cant afford it (she gets about 3,000$ in social security which is the only thing she relies on) and that she is moving to illinois. on the 28th is the last day she has to pay, but she moved on the 24th. what will happen now that she moved? i mean there are 2,000$ worth of bills she put in his name and refused to pay because they “overcharged” the account, when in fact she bought a lot of movies(time warner cable) and stuff. what can we do to make sure she pays up?
also we live in north carolina.
A small claims court will not collect the money for you. You are charged with that responsibility. The court will not assist in any way.
North Carolina does allow you to file a Writ of Execution which allows property to be seized from the debtor. But this gets complicated.
First you have to file the writ, it costs money. In the writ you must name specific assets to be seized. It has to be property that is not deemed off limits. The property description, location, and value must be listed. There is a fee for seizing and reselling the property, on the order usually of $100/hour performed by a constable.
Most property is off limits. Bank accounts which have ever received a social security payment; they won’t touch. Usually vehicles are off limits, and barring all of that, you’d have to know what the property is, looks like, and where it’s located; after you’ve ponied up a few hundred bucks.
Once the debt is a matter of record, you must also abide by the federal, “Fair Debt Collections and Practices Act”, and not only that, but the much more strict, “North Carolina Debt Collection Act”.
All small claims venues state that if a person cannot pay, it’s not worth suing them over, even if they owe you. Just remember, social security is off limits to everyone but the IRS. So unless they’re sitting on a Gucci watch, you’re probably out of luck.
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