How to answer a summons

CREDITWRENCH-THETRUTH

Questioner: LaTonya
Category: Collections Law
Private: Yes

Subject: summons
Question: I was served yesterday with a summons saying I am being sued for a old credit card debt( Providian). According to my credit report the debt has been charged off. The debt is also out of the SOL. The summons says I need to file a written answer. is there a form used for this and how do I file this written answer?

Answer: In the first place, if the summons was the first communication from the law firm I would check to see if the complaint contained all of the required miranda warnings. If it did not I would wait 5 days to see if they send me a letter which contains all the required Miranda notices.

I would then send a demand for validation to the attorney so that if he failed to provide proper validation or moved forward with his lawsuit without doing so I would have additional causes of action against him in federal court. Then I would prepare my motion to dismiss and wait until about 5 days before the deadline date on the summons and file a motion for more definitive statements first then follow that with all 5 of my discovery options in the proper order. Here is a great movie by Creditwrench CEO Bill Bauer teaching about motions for more definitive statements.
Bill Bauer live


I would also probably file some motions to dismiss for whatever reason that might arise. If I were to receive a summons for a debt that was out of stat however I would probably file a motion to dismiss with prejudice first because that would be more likely to succeed.

My next step would then be to file a federal lawsuit against the attorney for misrepresenting the legal status of the debt plus whatever other violations might have committed.

Some courts have forms that can be used but most of them don't allow enough room or proper options. I'd rather make up my own documents than to even bother with any court forms.

You can check with the clerk of the court to see if they have any such forms and if they don't you will just have to learn how to do it without such forms.

A very few state courts have forms that you must use for such purposes but you can follow those up with explanatory briefs in most courts which require you to use specific court provided forms.

Creditwrench students learn how to do all of this very quickly. They start off by going to http://www.creditwrench.com then visiting our message board at http://consumers.creditwrench.com and then becoming actual creditwrench students.