Student Loan Rich

Great site. Love the advice given here. Let me see if I can stump the experts. I had some student loans to go to a private college more than 10 years ago. I got out of there but I was in default with a Perkins loan held by the school. Some time ago I contacted the school’s lawyers and got a repayment contract and now I am in good standing with no mention of the default on my CR.

Recently a friend of mine jokingly told me that I could check the Florida clerk of the courts online to see if anyone was suing me so I said why the heck not.

Oh No! I had a judgement against me with the school as the plaintiff. Worse, after a call to the courts I found it was presented by the same lawyers. The judgement was awarded without my knowledge some months before I was negotiating with the school and lawyers for a repayment of the Perkins loan.

Another friend of mine who works at the school now found out that I had a $3000 tuition deferral that went unpaid and was referred to the courts. Now with interest it’s over $10,000.

The judgement is not on my credit report but I am afraid it could show up at any time and mess up my credit. Shouldn’t the lawyer have notified me about that judgement when I contacted them to negotiate repayment on my student loan, considering I did say “Is that all I owe to the school?” (I took notes of the convo). If they mentioned it to me then I would have been paying off $5000 instead of looking at this monstrous $10,000.

How should I go about this? Is there a way to get this reduced to what it should have been? Is there a law requiring the lawyers to have notified me when I contacted them?

Thanks for any help you can give me and keep up the good work.

Regards,

Rich

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Hello Rich,

If I understood you correctly, then it sounds like they obtained a default judgment for the tuition and perhaps without proper service.  A default judgment can be voided and reheard and if the judgment is for tuition then look into the applicable statute of limitations (which may have run); however, if the judgment is for the student loan then there is no statute of limitations, so rehearing a student loan issue may not be much help.

Thanks for the questions and hope this helps.

Paul

This author is not an attorney and this information should not be considered legal advice.  Please consult an attorney for legal advice.