LVNV Funding Is Suing Me in Florida — What Do I Do?

LVNV Funding LLC is one of the largest passive debt buyers in the United States. Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, LVNV is part of Sherman Financial Group LLC and was founded in 2001 specifically to purchase portfolios of charged-off consumer debts.

When a bank like Citibank, HSBC, Capital One, or GE Capital decides an account is uncollectible, it sells that debt — often for two to eight cents on the dollar — to a debt buyer. LVNV is one of the biggest buyers in the country. LVNV does not service the debt itself; it uses an affiliated company called Resurgent Capital Services LP to manage collections and engage local Florida collection attorneys.

In 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a consent order against Resurgent Capital Services for collecting on debts consumers had disputed by submitting Identity Theft Reports and for unfair billing practices. Resurgent paid a one-million-dollar civil money penalty and was required to provide consumer redress.

The key fact: LVNV is not your original creditor. LVNV did not lend you any money. LVNV bought your charged-off account at a deep discount, hoping to collect the full balance plus interest. That gap between what LVNV paid and what they are demanding from you is where their entire business model lives — and in Florida, where the FCCPA provides fee-shifted counterclaims, the gap creates real downside risk for LVNV when defendants fight back.

If you were just served with a complaint from LVNV Funding in Florida Circuit Court or County Court, here is what almost certainly happened. You fell behind on a credit card or other consumer account. The original creditor wrote the account off and sold it as part of a portfolio to LVNV at a deep discount. LVNV is now suing you in Florida because a default judgment is the most efficient way to convert that purchase into a full-balance recovery.

Industry data and CFPB studies confirm that the majority of consumers sued in debt collection cases never file an Answer. They get scared, they do not understand what to do, or they assume the lawsuit will go away if they ignore it. When that happens, the Florida court enters a default judgment automatically.

In Florida, a default judgment carries serious consequences. With a judgment in hand, LVNV can garnish up to 25% of your disposable income — although Florida has a strong "head of household" exemption under Fla. Stat. § 222.11 that protects primary wage earners supporting dependents. LVNV can also levy bank accounts and place liens on real property. The judgment affects your credit for up to seven years.

Filing a real Answer flips the case from a near-automatic default into a real lawsuit that LVNV must actually prove under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a) and Florida case law on chain of title. They often choose to settle or dismiss rather than do that work, especially when the FCCPA counterclaim is on the table.

Florida gives you twenty days to file your Answer or other responsive pleading after you were served with the summons and complaint. This deadline is set by Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a) and applies to most civil debt collection cases in Florida Circuit Court and County Court.

You count the twenty days starting the day after service. Weekends count. If the twentieth day falls on a weekend or court holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.090(a). "Served" in Florida generally means a sheriff or licensed process server personally handed you the papers, or — under certain conditions — left them with a person of suitable age at your usual residence.

If you miss the twenty-day deadline, LVNV will move for default judgment under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.500. The court will normally grant the default if the procedural requirements are met. Once a default is entered, vacating it requires a motion under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.500(d) showing excusable neglect, a meritorious defense, and due diligence — a three-part test that gets harder the longer you wait.

Florida’s twenty-day deadline is on the shorter end nationally. Combined with the head-of-household exemption complexity and the documentation requirements under Rule 1.130(a), the consumers most at risk in Florida are those who do nothing in the first twenty days.

The most important step you can take right now is to mark your deadline on your calendar and treat that date as the most important date on your schedule. Do not wait until day nineteen.

Florida has a strong procedural rule that requires debt buyers to attach the underlying account documentation to their complaint. Under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a), every claim founded on a written instrument must have a copy of the instrument attached to the complaint. This applies to credit card cases — the original cardholder agreement is the written instrument.

In practice, LVNV complaints filed in Florida often attach only a generic "account statement" or affidavit from a Resurgent custodian, without the original cardholder agreement and without the bills of sale that establish the chain of title. Florida case law has repeatedly held that this is insufficient.

The key Florida cases are: Harry Pepper & Associates v. Lasseter, 247 So. 2d 736 (3d DCA 1971), holding that where attached exhibits contradict the allegations of a pleading, the exhibits control; Glen Garron, LLC v. Buchwald, 210 So. 3d 229 (4th DCA 2017), reinforcing that ruling in the debt-buyer context; and Jaffer v. Chase Home Finance, LLC, 155 So. 3d 1199 (4th DCA 2015), holding that the chain of assignment must be specifically proven for the defendant’s account.

The Account Stated form pleading (Form 1.933) used by many Florida debt buyers also has detailed attachment requirements that are actively enforced.

If LVNV cannot produce a clean chain of title from the original creditor through every intermediate buyer to LVNV — with account-level identification — your Answer can raise lack of standing as an affirmative defense. Florida courts have dismissed LVNV cases where the attached documents contradicted the complaint or where the chain of assignment was incomplete.

For credit card debt and most consumer accounts in Florida, the statute of limitations is five years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b), which governs claims founded on a written contract. If LVNV waited too long after you stopped paying, your debt may be too old to collect — but only if you raise this defense yourself.

The clock starts running on the date of your last payment. If you made your last payment in March 2019, the five-year clock began on that date and expired in March 2024. A lawsuit filed in late 2024 would be filed outside the limitations period and would be time-barred. If you cannot remember when you last paid, look at your old credit reports — payment history is usually visible going back several years.

The statute of limitations in Florida is an affirmative defense that must be raised in your Answer. Under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(d), affirmative defenses must be specifically pleaded. If you fail to plead the SOL, you waive it — and LVNV gets a judgment on debt they had no legal right to collect.

LVNV is well known for filing on accounts that are right at the edge of the limitations period or even past it, betting that the consumer either will not raise the defense or will not respond at all. The Florida FCCPA is particularly powerful here: under Fla. Stat. § 559.72(9), filing a lawsuit on a debt the collector knows is not legitimate — including a time-barred debt — is itself a violation of the Act. That gives you not just a defense but a fee-shifted counterclaim.

Most credit card agreements contain a clause requiring that any dispute be resolved through binding arbitration administered by AAA or JAMS. When LVNV bought your account, they bought it subject to whatever terms were in the original cardholder agreement — which means the arbitration clause may now belong to you.

This is a powerful defense for Florida defendants. Even though the arbitration clause is enforceable by either side, debt buyers like LVNV often do not want to arbitrate. Why? Because arbitration is expensive on the business side. AAA and JAMS commercial filing fees for a business claimant typically run from $1,500 to $5,000 or more, plus the arbitrator’s hourly fees. If the disputed debt is $3,200, the cost of arbitration may exceed the recoverable amount.

This creates the "arbitration fee trap." When a Florida defendant files a motion to compel arbitration under Fla. Stat. § 682.03 — and the court grants it — LVNV must choose between paying thousands in arbitration filing fees or abandoning the case. They very often abandon.

Florida courts will compel arbitration if the agreement is valid and the dispute falls within its scope. Under Florida’s Revised Arbitration Code, motions to compel are typically brought early in the case to avoid waiver. To use this defense, you generally need a copy of the original cardholder agreement showing the arbitration clause.

Florida has an additional layer of leverage: even if LVNV abandons the case after arbitration is compelled, you can pursue an FCCPA counterclaim under Fla. Stat. § 559.72 for filing a baseless suit. That kind of downside risk frequently causes LVNV to settle on terms favorable to the defendant before the arbitration motion is even decided.

Your Answer is the most important document you will file in this case. It is your formal response to LVNV’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 under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(c), it raises every applicable affirmative defense under Rule 1.110(d), and — where appropriate — it raises an FCCPA counterclaim.

For the admit-or-deny portion: do not admit anything you do not actually know. If LVNV alleges that you owed Citibank $3,217.42 as of a charge-off date you do not remember, deny that allegation for lack of knowledge. Florida pleading rules expressly allow this kind of denial.

The affirmative defenses to consider in a Florida LVNV Answer include lack of standing or chain of title under Jaffer v. Chase Home Finance; failure to attach required documents under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a); statute of limitations (the debt is older than five years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b)); failure to state a cause of action; account stated cannot be established; arbitration clause (if the original agreement contains one); and the head-of-household exemption under Fla. Stat. § 222.11 if you are the primary wage earner supporting dependents.

Where FCCPA violations are present, raise a counterclaim under Fla. Stat. § 559.72 — fee-shifting plus statutory damages plus potential punitive damages under § 559.77. This dramatically changes LVNV’s risk calculation.

What you should never do: do not admit you owe the debt. Do not call LVNV to "explain your situation." Do not promise to pay. Do not ignore the lawsuit.

Florida has one of the strongest consumer protection regimes in the country for debt collection defendants — the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, codified at Fla. Stat. §§ 559.55–559.785.

The FCCPA prohibits a wide range of unfair or deceptive collection practices. Three provisions matter most in an LVNV case. Section 559.72(9) prohibits asserting the existence of a legal right when the collector knows the right does not exist — including suing on a time-barred debt. Section 559.72(7) prohibits willfully communicating with a debtor with such frequency or in such a manner as can reasonably be expected to harass. Section 559.77 authorizes a private right of action with statutory damages up to $1,000, actual damages, and attorney’s fees, plus potential punitive damages.

Uniquely, the FCCPA gives you a counterclaim that survives even if LVNV voluntarily dismisses the lawsuit. So if LVNV files a baseless suit and then walks away when challenged, you can still pursue them for the FCCPA violation.

In addition, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies to LVNV and Resurgent. The FDCPA prohibits false statements, misrepresentations of the amount or character of the debt, and abusive collection tactics. FDCPA violations entitle you to up to $1,000 in statutory damages plus attorney’s fees in federal court.

The combination of FCCPA fee-shifting and FDCPA statutory damages is the reason debt buyers often dismiss Florida cases when they see a real Answer with counterclaim. The downside risk of losing the case can easily exceed the value of the underlying debt.

After you file your Answer with the Florida court clerk and serve a copy on LVNV’s attorney, the case enters discovery. Discovery in Florida is governed by Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.280 and following, and gives each side broad rights to request documents and information.

In an LVNV case, this is where the chain-of-title defense gets tested. You can serve a request for production of documents under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.350 demanding every assignment document, every bill of sale, the original cardholder agreement, and the complete account history. LVNV must respond within thirty days. If they cannot produce a clean chain of title and an authenticated account record, their case is in serious trouble.

What very often happens next is a settlement offer. The economics for LVNV change dramatically once they realize they are facing a defendant who is going to make them prove their case — and who may have an FCCPA counterclaim pending. Florida practitioners report that debt buyers commonly settle real-Answer cases for forty to sixty cents on the dollar, sometimes much less.

If the case does not settle, it proceeds to a court date. Cases under $8,000 are heard in Florida small claims under Fla. Sm. Cl. R., where the rules are simplified. Cases between $8,000 and $50,000 are in County Court under regular rules; cases above $50,000 are in Circuit Court.

A meaningful share of LVNV cases get voluntarily dismissed in Florida after discovery, especially when chain of title is weak or the FCCPA counterclaim raises real risk. Many more settle for a deeply discounted lump sum.

Answered is a self-help legal platform built specifically for pro se defendants in consumer debt collection lawsuits. The Florida playbook was reviewed by a Florida-licensed consumer-rights attorney and is built around the specific statutes and rules that govern LVNV cases — Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.130(a), Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b), the FCCPA, and the chain-of-title cases including Jaffer, Harry Pepper, and Glen Garron.

When you upload your summons and complaint, Answered does the following: it extracts your service date and your 20-day Answer deadline; it scans for the procedural defects most commonly found in LVNV pleadings, including missing original contract attachments under Rule 1.130(a) and missing bills of sale; it identifies whether your debt may be time-barred under the five-year SOL of Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b); it checks whether an arbitration clause is likely available; it analyzes whether an FCCPA counterclaim is supported; and it generates a court-ready Answer with the affirmative defenses that apply to your case.

The Answer document is formatted for Florida Circuit or County Court, includes the proper caption and case style, and contains the affirmative defenses and (where applicable) FCCPA counterclaim language. It also generates a discovery request package designed to push LVNV to produce or fail to produce the documentation required by Rule 1.130(a).

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

This product exists because the founder, John DiSalle, was sued by a debt buyer, fought back using exactly this process, and won. He built Answered so that other defendants do not have to figure it out from scratch.