Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Pennsylvania

Simply stated, a judgment is an official document filed in the Court House determining that you owe the judgment holder money. It is as if you went through a trial and lost, the Court would enter a judgment for the payment of money against you. The issue in your case is how did the Plaintiff enter judgment. There are generally 2 ways this could have occurred. First, you could have signed for a loan which contained a Confession of Judgment clause. This would allow the lender to automatically enter a judgment you after 10 days written notice. The second way is that someone sued you and you never responded to the Complaint within the appropriate time period. This would be a default judgment, and would require the same 10 day notice.

A judgment is a serious issue. It can adversely affect your credit rating; it can affect your ability to purchase or sell a house. Most importantly, depending on the size of the judgment, the County Sheriff can seize your property and put it up for Sheriff's Sale where your property will be auctioned off.

This is something that you must deal with immediately. Under certain circumstances, the judgment can be opened. YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH A LAWYER IMMEDIATELY, as any delay will work against you.

It sounds as though you received a 10-day letter as required by the Pa Civil Procedure Rules. A 10-day letter is sent after a complaint is filed. You have 20 days to object to or answer the complaint. You also could have got the 10-day letter in response to the confession of judgment so I would have to see the papers to know the difference.

Either way, this was not your first contact with this. You were either served with the complaint and ignored it or entered into some kind of confession of judgment and did not make the payments.

Depending on the circumstances, it may be possible to have the judgment opened.

There are many lawyers in PA who will litigate this for you if you have grounds to do so. You do not indicate what the judgment was for so I do not know what kind of any attorney you will need.

As noted above, a judgment can have very serious consequences for you so please have the papers reviewed by an attorney. Once that is done, you will know if you need to file bankruptcy, open the judgment or settle the judgment.