Judgment

• Generally, bankruptcy will discharge a judgment in Georgia, or any other state. A judgment is a court's order reflecting that you are legally responsible for a debt. Before a court can enter a judgment in Georgia, someone must, at minimum, file a complaint, provide you with notice of the complaint and give you an opportunity to present your side of the story in court. If you don't respond to the complaint and appear to present your side of things, the court will generally issue a default judgment against you, which typically gives the other party whatever she asked for.
  
  

Priority

• Whether bankruptcy will allow you to discharge your judgment in Georgia, or throughout the country, will depend upon whether the judgment constitutes a priority or nonpriority debt. Debts with priority status are nondischargeable because Congress concluded that discharging them would undermine public policy. Child support judgments, for example, are priority debts. Additional examples include judgments based on fraud, embezzlement or drunken-driving-related deaths. Nonpriority debts, such as judgments issued for credit card debt or general personal injury cases, are dischargeable.
  
  

Chapter 7

• Chapter 7 bankruptcy is one way of getting rid of your nonpriority judgment. Chapter 7 debtors have the option of walking away from most types of consumer debts within four to six months. In exchange for this privilege, Chapter 7 debtors generally must allow the trustee to sell their nonexempt assets to pay their unsecured creditors. A nonexempt asset is property unprotected by law. To qualify for Chapter 7, you must pass the means test. The means test looks at your household size and requires your income to be less than the median income for the same household size in your state.
  
  

Chapter 13

• Chapter 13 can also help you to get rid of a judgment in Georgia. Chapter 13 is an option if you do not qualify for Chapter 7 or want to keep property Chapter 7 would require you to give up. Chapter 13 generally allows you to keep your property if you pay off your past-due debt through a three- to five-year payment plan. If you choose a Chapter 13, you may pay a priority judgment through the payment plan. It's also possible to discharge a nonpriority judgment through a Chapter 13 at the end of your plan's payment term.