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I have searched the forums and haven't come across anything that fits my question.
My husband was just awarded a personal injury settlement of 35K. He is self employed with a small business and deals in cash only. There is a judgement against him for approximately 9K. Being he has no bank account they have not been able to do anything to collect it. They have not put a lien on our property. This judgement was obtained about 3 years ago. It is not our intention to not pay it. We just have not been able to. Our intention is to contact them and ask them to negotiate it down a few thousand. Not sure if this makes any difference but we do report income at tax time and do pay our taxes due.
So we need to open a bank account to cash the check. I am fearful that they will find the account and seize the money owed before we can negotiate. My question is, how often do creditors search for bank accounts? Is it different with each company? What we really want to do is deposit the check and then once cleared, withdraw the cash. Or is it just a crap shoot? Deposit the check and keep our fingers crossed?
You need to stop thinking that the entire $35k is YOURS, since you owe a legal debt of $9k. If you contact them now, they will find that money and they will garnishee the payment amount.
Just open the account at a credit union, and deposit the check. Why be fearful? If the court says you own the $9k, and they immediately seize it, thank your lucky stars that you NOW have the money to pay it off.
OP - how would you feel if you didn't receive your payment because that person was trying to hide the money because of other debt(s) to people? Pay your debt - if you haven't paid anything in 3 yrs. you obviously weren't planning to pay it at all.
OP - how would you feel if you didn't receive your payment because that person was trying to hide the money because of other debt(s) to people? Pay your debt - if you haven't paid anything in 3 yrs. you obviously weren't planning to pay it at all.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I was hoping to ask for advice without to much detail other than what I already did. However, I probably should have offered more info as to why this is important to me.
I mentioned this was a personal injury award which took 4 long years to settle! In that four years my husband almost lost his business because he was hurt. Our income was reduced by more than half. Our mortgage fell dangerously delinquent to the point of foreclosure notices. All other financial obligations became delinquent. We have had to borrow thousands from family to keep from losing everything. On top of that, I have accrued thousands in medical bills over the past two years. So I really won't have $26k left. At the end of the day, this $35k will be spent and will still owe a few thousand more.
I have negotiated some obligations. I have no other judgements other than this. I was just hoping to negotiate before they take the whole thing. I want to satisfy all my debt. If they won't, then so be it. I will have to try and cut somewhere else.
As far as me not planning on paying the debt since I haven't in 3 years, that is absolutely not true. I knew we were getting a settlement but not for how much and certainly didn't expect it to take 4 years.
So, back to my original question. Does anyone know how long they search for accounts?
I suspect that a company may do more frequent checks in the beginning and then periodic checks much less frequently (such as once a quarter or once a year). I also suspect that that they may have a time when an account becomes "cold" and it is only checked very rarely, if at all.
However, it is possible that checks can be set up on the internet to "run automatically". For example, as soon as money is detected in an account in your name it sends a message to the debt holder.
My advice is to try to re-negotiate the debt ASAP, if that is what you choose to do.
Couldn't you just deposit the check into an account with your name and not your husbands?
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