Cavalry SPV Is Suing Me in Florida — What Do I Do?

Cavalry SPV I LLC is a debt buyer headquartered in Valhalla, New York. The company was founded in 1998 and operates alongside its affiliated servicer, Cavalry Portfolio Services LLC, which handles the day-to-day collections work — phone calls, dunning letters, and the local Florida collection attorneys who file complaints in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Orange, Duval, and the rest of Florida’s Circuit Courts. The "SPV" in Cavalry SPV I LLC stands for Special Purpose Vehicle. That is not branding — it is a deliberate entity-structure choice that matters enormously to your Florida defense, because portfolios of consumer debt frequently move through several Cavalry entities (Cavalry Investments LLC, Cavalry SPV I LLC, Cavalry SPV II LLC, and bankruptcy-remote successor SPVs created for tax and credit reasons) before a complaint is filed against you in a Florida courtroom.

The single most important fact about Cavalry — the fact that should anchor every Answer you file and every settlement conversation you have with Cavalry’s Florida collection counsel — is the 2015 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau consent order. That order is one of the largest debt-collection enforcement actions in CFPB history. The CFPB found that Cavalry Portfolio Services and related Cavalry entities had been making false statements in debt-collection lawsuits and collecting on time-barred debts without the disclosures federal law requires. The order required approximately $92 million in consumer relief plus a $10 million civil money penalty. That is a documented federal record of Cavalry doing the very things your Answer is going to accuse them of doing in Florida Circuit Court.

Cavalry buys credit card debt and auto loan debt at deep discounts from original creditors. The most common original creditors in Cavalry portfolios are Citibank, HSBC, Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, GE Money Bank, and Washington Mutual. Cavalry did not lend you any money. They bought your charged-off account, sometimes for two to eight cents on the dollar, and they are now using the Florida court system to convert that bargain-basement purchase into a full-balance recovery, plus interest and fees stacked on top.

If you were just served with a Florida Circuit Court summons from Cavalry SPV I LLC, here is the sequence of events that almost certainly led to it. Months or years ago, you fell behind on a credit card or auto loan. The original creditor — a bank like Citibank, HSBC, Capital One, or GE Money Bank — eventually charged the account off as a loss. The bank then bundled your account into a portfolio with thousands of other charged-off accounts and sold the portfolio at a deep discount. Cavalry purchased the portfolio, often passing it through one or more SPV entities for accounting and bankruptcy-remoteness reasons. Cavalry is now suing you in Florida because a default judgment is by far the most efficient way for them to convert that purchase into a full-balance recovery.

The economics of Cavalry’s litigation strategy in Florida are aggressive. Cavalry is one of the more litigious debt buyers in the state — they file at high volume across Florida Circuit Courts and county courts, and they push cases hard against defendants who do not respond. CFPB data and Florida practitioner reports consistently confirm that the majority of consumers sued in debt collection cases never file an Answer. They get scared, they assume the lawsuit will go away on its own, or they simply do not understand how Florida civil procedure works. When that happens, the Florida court enters a default judgment automatically, and Cavalry walks away with a court-ordered right to garnish your wages, levy the funds in your bank account, or place a judgment lien on real property you own.

In Florida, a Cavalry default judgment carries serious consequences. With the judgment in hand, Cavalry can pursue wage garnishment of up to 25% of your disposable income — though Florida’s "head of household" exemption may protect a primary wage earner who supports dependents. Cavalry can freeze and levy funds in your Florida bank account through a writ of garnishment. They can record the judgment in any Florida county where you own real property, creating a lien that follows you until paid. The judgment stays on your credit report for years and can be renewed. The 2015 CFPB consent order specifically identified this default-judgment-by-attrition pattern as the conduct the bureau acted against.

That is exactly why the moment after you are served, with the 20-day clock under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a) running, is the most important moment in the entire case.

Florida gives you twenty days to file your Answer after you were served with the summons and complaint. The deadline is set by Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.140(a). Twenty days is shorter than most states — many give you thirty or thirty-five — and that compressed timeline is one of the reasons Florida defendants miss deadlines at higher rates than defendants in other jurisdictions.

You count the twenty days starting the day after you were served. Weekends and holidays are included in the count under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.090(a). If the twentieth day falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline rolls forward to the next business day. "Served" in Florida generally means a sheriff’s deputy or certified process server personally handed you the papers, or — under specific conditions in Fla. Stat. § 48.031 — left them with someone of suitable age at your usual place of abode. If the documents arrived in your mail without a personal handoff, look at the return of service in the court file to confirm exactly what method was used and what date the clock started.

If you miss the twenty-day deadline, Cavalry will move for default under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.500, and the clerk or the court will almost certainly enter it. Once the default is entered, undoing it is hard. Florida courts can set aside a default under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.540(b) for excusable neglect, but you must file a motion, you must show due diligence and a meritorious defense, and the court has full discretion to deny the motion. Do not assume you will get a second chance.

Mark your deadline on your calendar today. Twenty days from the day after service. Treat that date as the most important date on your calendar until your Answer is filed and stamped by the clerk. Florida Circuit Court will not extend it because you were busy or scared.

This is the question that defeats more Cavalry cases in Florida Circuit Court than any other defense, and it is the question Cavalry’s SPV structure makes especially vulnerable. To prove they have the right to sue you — what Florida courts call standing — Cavalry must produce a complete, unbroken chain of title from the original creditor (say, Citibank or HSBC) all the way to Cavalry SPV I LLC. If any link in that chain is missing, defective, or generic, the case is in trouble.

Florida’s pleading rule gives you a head start on this defense. Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.130(a) requires a debt buyer to attach to the complaint either the contract sued upon or, in account-stated and similar cases, the account-active document that anchors the claim. Form 1.933 — the Florida-approved Account Stated form — has its own attachment requirements that Florida courts actively enforce. When Cavalry’s complaint fails to attach the original cardholder agreement, the original account application, or a properly authenticated account-stated document, that failure alone supports a motion to dismiss.

Florida case law makes this defense even sharper. Under Harry Pepper & Associates v. Lasseter, 247 So. 2d 736 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971), where attached exhibits contradict the allegations of the complaint, the exhibits control. Read that twice. If Cavalry alleges in its complaint that they own your account, but the only document attached is a generic block bill of sale that does not name your account number or original creditor, the document controls — and the document does not say what Cavalry needs it to say. Glen Garron, LLC v. Buchwald, 210 So. 3d 229 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017), reinforces the same principle in the debt-buyer context: the documents Cavalry chose to attach define what they have actually pleaded.

The Jaffer rule is where the SPV structure cuts hardest against Cavalry. Under Jaffer v. Bank of America, N.A. (cited as Jaffer v. Chase), 155 So. 3d 1199 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015), the chain of assignment must be proven for the specific account at issue — not for the portfolio in general. A bulk bill of sale transferring a pool of charged-off accounts is not enough; Cavalry must establish that your particular account number, with its particular charge-off balance, was actually included in that transfer. Because Cavalry portfolios pass through multiple SPV entities — Cavalry Investments to Cavalry SPV I to a downstream SPV — Cavalry must satisfy Jaffer at every transfer. That is a high bar, and Cavalry frequently cannot meet it.

The 2015 CFPB consent order is directly relevant here. The bureau specifically faulted Cavalry for false statements in court filings and for using affidavits that asserted facts the affiant could not personally verify. Florida judges weighing your motion to dismiss for lack of standing — or your objection to a Cavalry Portfolio Services custodian’s affidavit — now have a documented federal record of exactly that pattern.

Every legal claim has a deadline by which the plaintiff must sue, and once that deadline expires the claim is "time-barred." For credit card debt and most consumer accounts in Florida, the statute of limitations is five years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b). If Cavalry waited too long after you stopped paying, your debt may be too old to collect — but only if you raise this defense yourself in your Answer.

The clock starts running on the date of your last payment on the account. If you made your last payment on March 15, 2019, the five-year clock began on March 15, 2019, and expired on March 15, 2024. A Cavalry lawsuit filed in May 2024 on that account would be filed outside the limitations period and would be time-barred under § 95.11(2)(b). If you cannot remember your exact last-payment date, look at your old credit reports — payment history is usually visible going back several years — or request the original creditor’s account records through formal discovery once your Answer is filed.

The 2015 CFPB consent order against Cavalry is directly on point. The bureau’s findings were not abstract — they were specifically that Cavalry had been collecting on time-barred debts without the federally required disclosures. That is not a footnote in Cavalry’s history. It is a defining federal finding, and it is admissible evidence of Cavalry’s pattern of conduct in Florida cases. When you raise the five-year SOL defense in your Florida Answer and pair it with a Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act counterclaim under Fla. Stat. § 559.72, the consent order strengthens your record by showing that the conduct you are alleging is exactly the conduct the federal government has already documented.

The statute of limitations is what Florida lawyers call an "affirmative defense." It does not happen automatically. The court will not throw out the case on its own just because the debt is old. You must plead it in your Answer or you waive it under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(d) — and Cavalry walks away with a judgment on debt the federal government has already said they should not have been collecting.

Most credit card agreements contain a clause requiring that any dispute be resolved through binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association or JAMS. When Cavalry purchased your account, they purchased it subject to whatever terms were in the original cardholder agreement — which means the arbitration clause may now belong to you as a defense in Florida Circuit Court.

Florida courts enforce arbitration clauses under Fla. Stat. § 682.03. When a defendant moves to compel arbitration and the court finds the clause is valid and the dispute falls within its scope, the court must stay the litigation and compel arbitration. This is one of the most powerful and least-used tools for Florida Cavalry defendants, and the reason is counterintuitive. Even though the arbitration clause is enforceable by either side, debt buyers like Cavalry usually do not want to arbitrate. AAA and JAMS commercial filing fees for a business claimant typically run from $1,500 to $5,000 or more before any work has been done, plus the arbitrator’s hourly rate. If Cavalry is suing you for, say, $3,200, the cost of arbitration may exceed the recoverable amount.

This dynamic is sometimes called the "arbitration fee trap." When a Florida defendant files a motion to compel arbitration under § 682.03, and the court grants the motion, Cavalry must choose between paying thousands of dollars in arbitration filing fees up front or abandoning the case. They very often abandon — and Florida’s FCCPA gives the abandonment unusual teeth. Under Fla. Stat. § 559.72(9), Cavalry can be sued back for filing a baseless or improper collection action even after they walk away from it. That converts the arbitration motion from a defensive tactic into a potential affirmative recovery.

If your original credit card agreement contained an arbitration clause, you may be able to move the case out of Florida Circuit Court entirely. To use this defense effectively, you generally need a copy of the original agreement showing the clause. Cavalry is required to produce that document if you request it through discovery, and the underlying creditors’ standard cardholder agreements (Citibank, Chase, Capital One, HSBC) almost universally contain arbitration provisions for accounts opened in the last fifteen years. This is an advanced strategy and one of the situations where Answered’s playbook system can walk you through the procedural steps.

Your Answer is the most important document you will file in the entire case. It is your formal response to Cavalry’s complaint, and it locks in your defenses for the rest of the lawsuit. A good Answer in Florida does three things: it admits or denies each numbered allegation in the complaint as required by Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(c), it raises every applicable affirmative defense, and — where the facts support it — it raises a counterclaim under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act.

For the admit-or-deny portion, the Florida rule is simple: do not admit anything you do not actually know to be true. Under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(c), you may deny an allegation for lack of knowledge, and the rule treats that denial the same as a flat denial. If Cavalry alleges that you owed Citibank exactly $4,217.42 as of a charge-off date you do not specifically remember, deny that allegation for lack of knowledge. Admitting allegations you cannot personally verify hands Cavalry elements of their case for free.

The affirmative defenses to consider raising in a Florida Cavalry Answer include lack of standing or chain of title (Cavalry cannot prove unbroken account-level assignment under Jaffer v. Chase, 155 So. 3d 1199, especially across the SPV-to-SPV transfers); failure to attach the contract or account-active document under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a); the exhibits-control rule of Harry Pepper v. Lasseter, 247 So. 2d 736, where the documents Cavalry chose to attach contradict the allegations; the Form 1.933 attachment requirements where the case is pleaded as account stated; statute of limitations under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b) if your last payment was more than five years before suit; failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; account stated cannot be established because Cavalry cannot prove an agreement on a specific balance; and arbitration under Fla. Stat. § 682.03 if the original cardholder agreement contains a clause. Where the facts support it, plead a Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act counterclaim under Fla. Stat. § 559.72, citing the 2015 CFPB consent order as evidence of Cavalry’s pattern conduct.

What you should never do in Florida: do not admit you owe the debt. Do not call Cavalry Portfolio Services to "explain your situation" — anything you say can and will be used against you. Do not promise to pay or sign any settlement document before your Answer is filed. Do not ignore the lawsuit and hope it disappears. The 20-day clock under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a) is unforgiving, and the Florida Circuit Court will not extend it because you were busy, scared, or unsure what to do.

Florida has one of the strongest consumer protection statutes in the country for debt collection defendants, and most consumers being sued by Cavalry have no idea it exists. The Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, codified at Fla. Stat. §§ 559.55 through 559.785, gives you tools that go well beyond simply defending the lawsuit — it gives you affirmative recovery rights against Cavalry.

The core provision is Fla. Stat. § 559.72, which prohibits a long list of conduct that maps directly onto the way Cavalry operates. The statute prohibits collecting or attempting to collect a debt the collector knows is not legitimate, asserting the existence of a legal right the collector knows does not exist, communicating false information about a debt, and using harassment, oppression, or abuse in connection with collection. Filing a Florida lawsuit when Cavalry cannot prove standing under Jaffer v. Chase, or filing on a debt that is time-barred under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b), can implicate § 559.72.

Section 559.72(9) is the provision Cavalry should fear most. It prohibits a collector from asserting the existence of any right the collector knows does not exist. This is the hook that lets you sue Cavalry back even if they voluntarily dismiss your case mid-litigation. If Cavalry files in Florida, you raise the defense, Cavalry walks away rather than prove standing — that voluntary dismissal does not protect Cavalry from a § 559.72(9) claim. Florida defendants regularly recover under this provision after a Cavalry dismissal.

Florida’s FCCPA is fee-shifted under Fla. Stat. § 559.77. If your counterclaim succeeds, Cavalry must pay your reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Statutory damages are also available, and Florida courts have awarded punitive damages under § 559.77 in cases where the collector’s conduct was egregious. The 2015 CFPB consent order — about $92 million in consumer relief plus the $10 million penalty for, among other things, false statements in court filings and collecting on time-barred debts — is admissible evidence of Cavalry’s pattern conduct in support of any FCCPA counterclaim. Florida judges weighing the credibility of a Cavalry Portfolio Services affidavit will recognize the federal record.

In addition to the FCCPA, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies to Cavalry SPV and Cavalry Portfolio Services. The FDCPA prohibits false statements, misrepresentations of the amount or character of the debt, and abusive collection tactics, and it provides up to $1,000 in statutory damages plus attorney’s fees in federal court. The combination of FCCPA fee-shifting, FDCPA statutory damages, and the documented 2015 CFPB enforcement record is the reason Cavalry routinely settles or dismisses Florida cases when they see a real Answer raising these defenses.

After you file your Answer with the Florida Circuit Court clerk and serve a copy on Cavalry’s collection counsel by e-service through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, the case enters discovery. Discovery is the formal process by which each side requests documents and information from the other under the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure.

In a Cavalry case, discovery is where the chain-of-title defense gets tested under Jaffer v. Chase. You — or Answered’s discovery templates on your behalf — can serve a request for production of documents under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.350 demanding every assignment document, every bill of sale, every SPV-to-SPV transfer agreement, the original cardholder agreement, the original account application, and the complete account history from the original creditor. Cavalry must respond within thirty days under Rule 1.350(b). If they cannot produce a clean account-level chain of title from the original creditor through every Cavalry entity to Cavalry SPV I LLC, plus an authenticated business record from a witness with personal knowledge of how the records were created, their case is in real trouble.

What very often happens next is a settlement offer. The economics for Cavalry change dramatically once they realize they are facing a Florida defendant who has read Rule 1.130(a), Jaffer, and Harry Pepper, and who is going to make Cavalry actually prove its case. Florida practitioners report that debt buyers commonly settle real-Answer cases for forty to sixty cents on the dollar, sometimes less. Settlement offers in Florida usually come from Cavalry’s collection counsel rather than from Cavalry Portfolio Services collectors directly.

If the case does not settle, it proceeds toward trial. Florida small claims procedure under the Florida Small Claims Rules applies to cases up to $8,000, where rules are simplified and pro se defendants can navigate the procedure without a lawyer. For amounts above $8,000, the case is in regular Florida Circuit Court (or county court for cases up to $50,000) and follows the full Florida Rules of Civil Procedure.

The realistic outcome spectrum looks like this. A meaningful share of Cavalry cases get voluntarily dismissed by Cavalry after discovery, especially when the chain of title fails Jaffer or when the attached documents fail Harry Pepper. Many more settle for a deeply discounted lump sum. A smaller share go to trial. Defendants who file real Answers raising Rule 1.130(a), the Jaffer chain-of-assignment rule, the five-year SOL, and the 2015 CFPB consent order win or settle far more often than defendants who default.

Answered is a self-help legal platform built specifically for people like you — pro se defendants in Florida consumer debt collection lawsuits. The Florida playbook was reviewed by a Florida-licensed consumer-rights attorney and is built around the specific Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, statutes, and case law that govern Cavalry cases in Florida Circuit Court and county court.

When you upload your summons and complaint, Answered does the following. It extracts the key dates, including your service date and your 20-day Answer deadline under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a). It scans the complaint for the procedural defects most commonly found in Cavalry pleadings, including missing chain-of-title documents across the SPV-to-SPV transfers, generic bulk bills of sale that do not satisfy Jaffer v. Chase at the account level, missing original cardholder agreements under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a), defective Form 1.933 account-stated attachments, and generic affidavits from Cavalry Portfolio Services custodians. It identifies whether your debt may be time-barred under the five-year SOL of Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b) based on the dates in your file. It checks whether an arbitration clause is likely available under Fla. Stat. § 682.03 given the original creditor. And it generates a court-ready Answer with the affirmative defenses that apply to your specific case, including specific reference to the 2015 CFPB consent order where the facts support it.

The Answer document is formatted for Florida Circuit Court or county court, includes the proper caption and case style under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.100, and contains the affirmative defenses and — where the facts support it — Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act counterclaim language under Fla. Stat. § 559.72 and § 559.77. It also generates a discovery request package under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.350 designed to push Cavalry to produce the chain-of-title documents Jaffer requires, or fail to produce them.

Pricing is simple. Free to start, and a one-time $99 charge to unlock and download your final documents. No subscription. No per-document fee.

This product exists because the founder, John DiSalle, was sued by a debt buyer, researched his own defense end-to-end, and built Answered from that experience so other Florida defendants do not have to assemble it from scratch.