Default Is the Failure to Repay a Debt
Video Transcribed: What is a default? Hello, my name is Ryan Cannonie. I’m an attorney in Tahlequah with Wirth Law Office. And the term default comes up, and some people were kind of confused by it, so I figured I’d explain it a little bit.
So the concept of default is when you send something to the opposing party in litigation, in a lawsuit, and they never respond, then you can go to the court and basically say, hey, I’m here. Here’s what I want. You don’t know what they want. They were given a chance to be here, and they chose not to, and so just give me what I want.
For example, if you’re involved in a divorce, and you come to us, retain us, we send out a petition for divorce. We send out, in there, you want to keep the property, you want to keep the kids, let them fight us for it in court.
We also send a summons, giving them notice of the hearing day, giving them notice of petition, giving them notice that there is a petition filed, everything we have to do by law, and they never respond. They don’t show up at any hearing dates afterward. They don’t respond with an answer. They just ignore it.
Well, then we could go into the court and say, you know, here’s all of our proof that we got them copies of all this and we’re past the date, and it’s time now we want a default. And so you do a motion for default with the court, and ask the court to award you everything you want because the other person’s refusing to participate, is kind of the basics of it.
Now, there are a lot of rules to it, especially when you start talking about certain specialty areas of the law. So if you have questions about this, if you’ve been served with something and you’re kind of wondering, oh, should I respond to this or not? Definitely talk to an attorney, give us a call, and we’ll go over it with you. Go to tahlequahattorney.com, when you need a Tahlequah Lawyer.
