I receive 2 or 3 calls each week from folk who have just received a summons or some other threatening letter. Normally they've had a chat to the opposition attorney who has persuaded them that they have no rights whatsoever and may as well give up immediately. It's at this point that I become the advisor of last resort. And my advice is always the same.

If you receive any legal document of whatever nature - do not speak to anyone on the opposite side. Not the supplier, bank or creditor. Not their accounts department. Not their attorney. Not their attorneys clerk. Nobody on the other side.

In my experience we recipients of these legal bombshells get very emotional and try and reason with the opposite party. Understand just one thing. If you're being sued for money nobody cares about your reality - they just want their money - whether you think you owe it or not.

I had an interesting experience a short while back when an attorney took judgment against me - while I was still negotiating with him. But, in essence, he was just doing his job - irrespective of how lacking in integrity I might think it is. His job is to get the money.

The first thing you want to do is get your attorney on the job. He has a few advantages over you. Firstly, he's not involved emotionally. This means that he will be less likely to cave in when hit with a little pressure.

Secondly, he knows the rules of the legal game. He can see through all those ploys that his opposite number is going to use to scare you.

The law is actually very simple. If I want to take a judgment against you I must prove that you owe me a specific amount of money, and that it is due now. That's the simple part. The technicalities that arise are are overwhelming, however. So the opposition attorney really does not want you to go to your own attorney. He'd rather deal with you direct because he's already thought of a bunch of ways you can wiggle out of this debt and he's hoping that you haven't. He's usually right.

Anyone with a remote bit of intelligence [and many attorneys indeed do have such remote bits of intelligence] can raise a few questions about the exact amount. For instance, how does interest feature in the total? And how was the rate agreed on? And when did interest start accumulating? And is it being capitalised monthly or yearly? And is capitalisation allowed for a debt of this kind?

What about the debtor? Should the firm being summonsed or you? When did you accept responsibility for this debt? When did it arise? How did it arise? Who signed for the goods? Did you actually receive them? Was the price correct?

What about the period? Is it longer than 3 years since the debt arose? Is the debt actually due yet? How much of the total amount being demanded is due, and how much isn't?

What about the creditor? Is the correct company suing you? How much paperwork do they have to back up their claim? How valid is that paperwork? Who signed it? Why? When?

Are you being summonsed in the correct court? Is this a magistrates court matter or a supreme court matter? Should this be judged in the PE courthouse or the Somerset West courthouse?

Trying to handle your own legal matters is a bit like a doctor trying to surgically remove his own haemorrhoids! Unwise and desperately painful!

Next time you receive any legal piece of paper - call an attorney. [And no, this article was not sponsored by the Law Society of South Africa - but by a recent painful surgical experience!]

© Peter Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za

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