In the past, I've written about the importance of answering a debt collection lawsuit. But answering the lawsuit is only the first step. After the debt collector receives your answer, they'll usually send you written discovery. The discovery will probably have interrogatories, requests for production of documents, and requests for admission. In Minnesota, it's critical that you respond to each of these things within 30 days of receiving them.

This post focuses on how to respond to interrogatories. Interrogatories are simply just questions about the case. Debt collectors are allowed to ask about anything that is relevant to their claims or your defenses. Do your best to answer each question. If you don't understand what the interrogatory is asking, then you may answer that you object to the interrogatory as vague or ambiguous. Your answers to each interrogatory are due within 30 days. Unlike requests for admission, it's not fatal to your case if you don't answer within this time. But you should make every effort to answer within 30 days and you should never just ignore the interrogatories.

A final word of caution: there are many forms available online that seemingly can be used to answer debt collection discovery. But before you just copy and paste from the internet, make sure you understand what the form answers mean and whether they apply to the discovery requests for your case. And be careful with objections. Unless you understand what an objection means and are relatively sure it applies to the question you've been asked, it's probably best to just answer the question.