Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Illinois
My sister, as executor to my mother's estate, brought suit and won a claim against someone who rented our parents home prior to its sale. The judgment was for payment of unpaid rent. Collection was not possible. At the settlement of the estate, my sister waved her rights to the judgment, which made me the majority claimant. After the estate closed, the person who had the judgment against him approached me and asked if we could talk about the judgment. He believes he owes nothing and refuses to ever pay it. He sent me a lot of paper that he states is proof that he paid all he was responsible for. I have no problem forgiving the debt, but the document he sent for me to sign says that I consider the obligation fulfilled. I told him I was unwilling to say that. His attorney says that in Illinois, it is not possible for me to simply forgive him of the debt. He replied ""The satisfaction in this context is a term of art which includes both payment of the amount owed, as well as forgiving unpaid amounts. I cannot change the document in this way because the law does not provide for forgiveness and only accord and satisfaction." So my question is, is his attorney correct? The gentleman has threatened lawsuit against me if I do not sign. On what grounds could he sue me? We have a judgment against him. It is not being pursued because he says he is willing to go his whole life evading it.
2 Answers from Attorneys
You say there is a judgment against the former tenant. He had the right to raise defenses at that time. If the judgment was assigned to you by the estate, you can forgive the debt. He has no right to sue you. Any claim he had was against the estate. He is now barred from proceeding on his claims against the estate. His threats are meaningless.
To give you a definitive answer, it would require a review of the order entered by the court and the correspondence sent to you by the attorney. It is not clear from the information you have provided on what grounds he could sue you. Generally, if you have a judge's signature that he owes you money, he owes you money, simple as that, and it would take another order from a court to change that fact. Perhaps they are talking about trying to have the judgment set aside? There is certainly a significant risk to the defendant that he would not succeed, and it would cost the defendant a fair amount of money in attorneys fees to go that route. In any event, I would not suggest that you sign or agree to anything without discussing the situation with an attorney.
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