Judgement from a landlord?

[Trish]

Sounds like you have a default judgment against you.......which means they won because you didn't answer their summons or show up for court.
Sometimes, they will send you a summons and complaint (without filing with the court) giving you 20 days to respond. If you do not respond, they will then go ahead and file it and since you didn't answer, they don't have to send you any more info.........instant default judgment. I had to learn this the hard way.

One thing you should definitely do is look into the rules of service for your state. See if you were served properly. The clerk of the court can tell you how and when you were served. If the summons was not served properly, you can file a motion to vacate.

[CreditCrisis]

Well thats the thing, like i said in an earlier post, i did respond. i sent info back proving that i didnt live at the address up to the date that they were claiming.

[Trish]

Do you still have the papers? Just wondering what exactly it was they sent you.

I had a similar situation and sent the CA an SOL letter. Later, I found out that they did not consider that a "proper" answer (there is a special format you must put your answer in) but instead considered my letter a Notice of Appearance. So AT LEAST they were obligated to send me further correspondence to inform me of my court date. Had I not answered at all, they would have just gotten a default judgment.

So I'm wondering if your response was considered (by them anyway) an improper response/answer making them think they could just go ahead and get their default judgment without notifying you.

Either way you do need to call or go down to the courthouse and see how and when they served you.

[nokio]

Trish, can you please share the format with us?

[Trish]

Sure.
This is very similar to what mine looked like (once I figured out what the heck to do):
http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/nro-cbjb/nro081005.pdf

Basically you have to answer each one of their accusations by admitting or denying. Then state your defense.

Alot of times there are forms online or at your local courthouse that you can just fill out..