If you don't pay your credit card debt
and a lawsuit is served and filed before you move overseas, it would move forward in your absence. "Typically in the United States, a lawsuit would be filed in the state or county where the debtor lives," says William "Mike" Troglin, a Norcross, Ga.-based bankruptcy attorney. So if you're living in, say, Georgia when the lawsuit is filed, a Georgia court would hear the case even if you moved to a foreign country before the case was resolved.
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If a lawsuit has not been filed before you move overseas, things get a little trickier.
"If a company is owed a debt, they have to bring suit in a foreign country's court of law and abide by their rules and procedures," says Rachel Hunter, an attorney in Cary, N.C., who specializes in debt collection. "That means they will have to hire counsel in that area. A person would have whatever rights and defenses he would usually have."
Companies could also file a U.S. suit against a person living abroad, Hunter says, but that company's success would depend on the country's legal system and whether it would cooperate with the United States.
But the odds of a suit being filed internationally over credit card debt are relatively slim, experts say. "The cost of overseas enforcement is going to be prohibitive to most credit card companies and junk debt buyers," says Hunter. "Nobody is going to go to Europe, Asia, Latin America or some other place for a $2,000 or even $20,000 debt. In addition, it may be difficult to locate a person who is living abroad, although there are companies that will provide international skip trace services in certain countries."
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