We were contacted by a client whose funds were levied or frozen due to a default judgment obtained by Midland Funding, a debt buyer and enforced by Rubin and Rothman, a debt collection law firm. Although the judgment obtained was only for $4,000, approximately $8,000 was levied in our client’s account because of the New York state law that states that double the amount of funds may be levied because of a money judgment. Our client was never served and had no idea that there was a judgment against her in the court system as the case itself was from 2006. The client was specifically concerned that the judgment against her was preventing her from obtaining financing on a new home that she was attempting to close on. Her real estate attorney instructed her to have the judgment removed or otherwise forget about closing on the new home.
We quickly filed an order to show cause to vacate judgment in Queens Civil court and served Rubin and Rothman with notice as well as asking the court to dismiss the case against our client due to a lack of standing. Simply put, we did not believe that Midland Funding which likely bought the debt for pennies on the dollar would be able to show proof that they properly purchased this debt and that they had all of the documentation to make out their case. Rubin and Rothman contacted us before the court date and offered a very low settlement which our client accepted and they also vacated the judgment. It made sense to do so in this case as our client was in a time crunch to close on her home and spent less in legal fees by settling this debt for less than $1,000.