Legal questions?

Question

My father had a medical incident three years ago and has been hospitalized in a coma like symptom since then. Before his incident, he owes a lot of money to his credit cards. We've gotten a lot of letters and phone calls from his credit cards, collections agencies, and lawyers over the years to settle the debts. We did nothing but to ignore them over the years. But lately, one of the collection agencies/lawyer decided to bring my father to court and threatening to take all his asset if he doesn't respond. Reality is he's not able to respond to it. Their threat of taking his asset is not much of a threat either because none of our assets are under my father's name,except a joint bank account with my mother, which is not much.

My question are:
None of those debts have my mother's name in it. Can they legally go after my mother if we continue to ignore them? (We live in NJ and NY)

How can we get them off our back?

Answer 1

Sara is correct, have the doctor write a letter explaining his condition and prognosis, send the letter to the creditors.

Answer 2

i dont think they can go after your mom. since one person is not responsible for another's actions. my grandfather went through almost the same thing for few month except eventually he passed way. the credit companies stoped calling the moment we told them. just a doctor write a note he's not capable of getting out bed. and send it to the lawyer and/or the judge himself

Answer 3

If they were married when the debt was incurred, they can go after your mom even though she didn't actually sign any finance agreements.

Answer 4

If your father is not likely to come out of the coma, then his legal representative should declare bankruptcy in his name.

Answer 5

yes if your parents are married then his debts are HER debts. Or if he incurred the debts before they were divorced, then they are still his debts.