Civil Judgment recently came to light - really scared

snarkaholic wrote:Hi Everybody,

What happens in the matter of civil judgments for cases of fraud? I found out last week I have a 7 year old civil judgment that accuses me of unemployment benefits fraud (not in that language, but good as), for a significant sum of money. However this judgment and the papers I was sent were to an address that I moved from, hence I never knew about because the judgment was entered 5 months later, 2500 miles across the country in America.

Without going into too much detail for legal reasons (attorney advice), how does this matter factor into FLRM/ILR visas, since they ask about civil judgments?

(BTW I never committed benefits fraud, but apparently they think I did. I don't have the full details yet to why they think I did--it's either a mistake in their bureaucracy or I wasn't entitled to benefits, or even scarier, employer retaliation). If whatever this was was serious, I would have had a warrant out or arrested.

So it's not criminal, I don't have a warrant, I was never arrested, or charged, or convicted. But FLRM and SETM ask about civil judgments...then there's the all import "good character" requirement for citizenship. Would the UKBA automatically refuse me because of the nature of the accusation? If anything since I'm the one who came forward after finding this ghost from the past from my own due diligence (online searching to make sure I'm clean) I would think that IS "great character."

I'm working to sort this out--I might have to pay back the money if . I wasn't entitled to the benefits in the first place. If that's the case, FINE, money's not as important as the woman I want to marry. But I never intentionally did anything wrong.

All I was trying to do is make sure everything is perfect before I apply for the fiance visa next year, and I find this...

Thanks for any thoughts/ideas/facts. I can't find any info ANYWHERE on the net about something of this nature. The last thing I want to happen is leave everything behind in America, get my financé visa, then wind up getting booted out of the country because of this matter.