Illinois Reducing Interest Rate, Revival Deadline on Consumer Debt Judgments

 Posted on June 27, 2019 in Creditor's Rights

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign a bill that will change the rules for collecting consumer debt after a debt judgment. The bill, which has passed both the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives, would reduce the interest rate charged to outstanding consumer debts. More significantly, the bill would cut by 10 years the amount of time that a creditor has to revive a judgment that has become dormant. Sponsors of the law tout it as a way to protect low-income Illinois consumers from cumbersome debts. Creditors of Illinois debtors may need to work faster to collect on court-ordered debt judgments.

Qualifications

There are two important caveats of the law as it applies to debtors. The changes affect debt judgments only if:

• They involve consumer debts; and
• The debt is $25,000 or less.

Consumer debts are debts accrued by individuals for personal, family, and household expenses. Nonconsumer debts are debts from an organization or business or debts that an individual accrues for purposes other than their personal expenses.

Interest Rates

When a court makes a debt judgment in favor of a creditor, it orders the debtor to repay the creditor. For each year that the debt is unpaid, the creditor is allowed to charge interest on the remaining debt amount. Illinois law set the interest rate at nine percent, which will continue to be the rate for nonconsumer debts. The proposed law would lower the interest rate on consumer debts to five percent.

Revival

Illinois debt judgments remain active for seven years after the court made the initial ruling. The judgment will then become dormant, and the creditor will be unable to enforce the judgment until it files a petition to revive the judgment. However, there is a deadline for when a creditor can revive a judgment. Under current law, creditors cannot revive a judgment if it has been more than 20 years since the original judgment was made. The proposed law would lower the deadline to 10 years for consumer debts. This means that a consumer debt could be dormant for only three years before it is too late to revive it.

Contact a Chicago Creditor’s Rights Attorney

Receiving a court judgment against a debtor does not end your work on collecting outstanding debt. You may need to utilize debt collection tools in order to force the debtor to repay you. A Chicago debt collection lawyer at Dimand Walinski Law Offices, P.C., will work with you until the debt has been repaid. Schedule a consultation by calling 312-704-0771.

Source:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=88&GAID=15&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=113910&SessionID=108&GA=101&SpecSess=0