Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

Re: credit debt

Basically, it depends on how your home is titled and how the credit cards are held. If the credit card company gets a judgment against the homeowner then they can file a lien on the property and perhaps force its sale. But if the home is held as a tenancy by the entirety and the credit card debt and/or judgment is against only one spouse, then they cannot force a sale of the house. So you need to look at how the home is held and whether the credit card account is a joint account. Hope that helps.

Re: credit debt

Credit card companies do not have any rights different from any other creditor.

First, a creditor has NO rights whatsoever to do any such thing until they first go to court and PROVE that you owe the money, and they get a judgment. If any collection agency says such nonsense, you should keep careful notes and see an attorney about potentially suing them for a violation of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. (Of course if you fail to show up for court, and lose by default, they will not have to prove it. This happens hundreds of times a week in Virginia. Make sure that they know your current address, because the worst thing that can happen to you is that you have a court date and you don't know about it. NEVER miss a court date (except for a garnishment when it is usually pointless).

Second, if they can get a judgment, then they can take a variety of steps to try to collect on the debt. One of those things would be seizing any assets like a home and selling it. However, such a creditor would be LAST in line behind any mortgages or other liens on the house.

Repossession of a home is a ton of work and takes significant elapsed time as well. Furthermore, if they were to sell the house, they would have to pay off the mortgage first, as well as paying a lot of expenses to various people involved in the process. As a result, unless you have a ton of equity in your house, the chance is small that they would ever actually see any money, after first paying off the mortgage(s), etc.

It is infinitely more likely that a creditor would garnish your wages and try to take money out of your bank account. They can only garnish money above a certain level of poverty, under a complicated set of rules that gives priority to other liens like child support, taxes, etc.