Filing a fraud lawsuit is often the last thing on the mind of victims and their attorneys. Typically, victims are too embarrassed to file a complaint, and they worry that their lender or state attorney will not take seriously their allegations. However, filing a fraud lawsuit puts you in the driver’s seat. Your complaint tells the truth, no matter how many defense lawyers and state Attorneys General attempt to refute it. It forces the lender to admit their misdeeds and, hopefully, to offer repayment in full.
The potential client may have been duped by a real estate investment company or broker; he or she may be a victim of real estate fraud; or he or she may have simply been taken for a ride.
In any case, your fraud lawsuit puts the fraud perpetrator in the direct position (or face) of suffering the financial consequences of their bad business judgment. As such, filing this lawsuit should be undertaken immediately after you become aware that you have been the victim of such conduct.
After you have filed your fraud lawsuit, your lender or state Attorney General is obligated to provide you with an investigation into the matter.
The investigation typically does not uncover any evidence of fraud, unless your lender refuses to cooperate. (This is extremely rare.) If, however, your attorney discovers that a creditor has consented to a debt settlement agreement with the perpetrator, or if you file a motion for a certificate of bankruptcy, your creditor’s assets are subject to seizure and sale by the bankruptcy court.
If the bankruptcy court does seize the assets of your creditor, they first must find a way to pay off your creditors.
In order to do that, your creditor must either agree to pay a percentage (known as a “service fee”) to settle the debt or sell the assets themselves. The service fee required by the bankruptcy code is only a portion of the debt owed, and if the creditor files for bankruptcy protection, this requirement will no longer apply. However, your bankruptcy will prevent creditors from taking collection actions against you-one of the most important benefits of filing for bankruptcy protection.
If, instead, the bankruptcy court finds that you have filed a frivolous lawsuit, then you are faced with the prospect of having your assets sold in order to satisfy your creditors’ claims against you.
The court is not required to give you an opportunity to prove that you have been the victim of fraudulent or frivolous lawsuits. Therefore, you face a horrible possibility of losing everything that you may have thought you had already accumulated. To make matters worse, if you file a motion for reconsideration of the bankruptcy court’s order, then the court may not take your motion seriously, and you risk having your case dismissed for filing a frivolous lawsuit. This is why it is important to hire a skilled fraud attorney to handle your fraud lawsuit.
Fraud is one of the most commonly committed white collar crime cases.
Because fraud is performed primarily by sophisticated white collar criminals, victims are often reluctant to pursue a civil fraud lawsuit on their own. Even if they suspect that their loved ones have engaged in some type of fraudulent conduct, it may be difficult to bring such a lawsuit against them. For this reason, victims of fraud should strongly consider hiring an experienced fraud attorney to bring their fraud case before a jury. With this expert help, victims can obtain the results they are seeking against their suspected fraudsters.
