Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

Re: Debt and Judgement Collections, Assets

First, if the debts have not been turned into

court judgments, they are not collectible after

5 years for a written contract(measured from the

date when payment was due and you failed to pay,

NOT from when the contract was signed), 3 years

for a verbal contract (measured from the last

date products or services were provided OR when

you last made a payment), UNLESS you promise in

writing to pay, which restarts the clock. Also

on a verbal contract, if you make payments on the

account it restarts the account (because it

validates that the debt is real).

Also, a court judgment in general district court

is only valid for 10 years, and cannot be

collected more than 10 years after the judgment.

Pay close attention to circuit court versus

general district court.

Second, the best thing for your family member to

do is to buy the truck in THEIR name, keep it in

their name, and let you use it. In general, I

would never advise anyone to hide their assets

from creditors or defraud creditors. HOWEVER,

we are talking about a GIFT and creditors are NOT

entitled to have family members give gifts, and

the family has no obligation to give any gift.

Because this is a gift, I would advise that they

keep it out of your name so that it cannot become

an asset that creditors can take.

You asked:

Can my creditors come after the truck if they already have garnishments against

my wages or judgements against me?

-----> Yes. They can take any steps they

believe will help collect on the debt, including

several actions simultaneously. THere are NO

restrictions on what a creditor can do (among

the legally available choices). People seem to

think that if they have a payment plan, the

creditor "can't" take action, or the like. The

law views that you owe the money, so the creditor

can do anything it wants to get the money.

Could I list the family member as the lien holder of the truck so I can get a job

with it to pay off my creditors?

-----> Yes, this would help, but then you might

have fights about whether there is any net

equity left in the truck, etc., etc. Plus this

would take additional work with the DMV, etc.

Therefore, I think it would be best to simply

keep the truck in your family member's name

as the most powerful and simplest solution.