We recently had two clients with similar situations having default judgments against them that were both being enforced by the debt collection law firm, Eltman Law, formerly known as Eltman and Cooper. The first was an LVNV Funding case which is one of the largest debt buyer creditor’s in the country while the second was Erin Capital Management, another very common debt buyer that we run across often. Eltman law had obtained default judgments on both of these matters against our clients as they were never served and had no notice of either the initial action against them or the judgment against them. The cases were both also very old stemming back from 2004 and 2005 respectively. Interestingly enough, both clients were in the middle of closing on property and these judgments stood in the way as a major red flag. Mortgage lenders will always request a title search before closing on a property to make sure that there are no liens or judgments. Banks frequently refuse to move forward with a closing unless these judgments are satisfied or vacated.
In these cases, our clients were desperate to close on these homes and asked us to resolve these matters within a few weeks of their potential closings. We immediately drafted and filed motions to vacate both judgments and asked the court to dismiss both cases due to a lack of standing among other defenses. We advised Eltman Law of the motions and received an offer to settle both matters for amounts that were unfavorable. We proceeded to argue both motions and successfully vacated both judgments due to improper service and had both cases dismissed with prejudice as Eltman Law did not even bother to show up and oppose our motions.