Q: Once a civil judgement has been entered, can the creditor send you to a collection agency and ask for more money?
My landlord file suit and was awarded $999 plus court cost. I was alerted by Credit Karma that a collection report had been made on my credit file from the same creditor but the amount is over $5K. Can they do that? When in court, they never asked nor did they receive this amount. What can I do about this? Also, they reported the same thing on my daughter's credit file even though she live with me but never signed the lease. Can she get that removed from her file as well?
A: The answer starts with that depends. If this is an old judgment the post-judgment interest could have raised teh total owed to over $5000. Or possibly the judgment included attorney's fees beig awarded to the creditor. You should get a copy of the judgment if you don't have one and use an online calculator to determine the amount which would be currently owed. If the total isn't what they are claiming you might have a claim against the creditor, to use as leverage to try and get them to forgive the judgment.
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