<prompt> Human: I need help in deciding what to do. My mom has pretty much used my name in getting a house mortgage. I did a credit check to find out that there is an application for a mortgage that I knew nothing about. I also owe bills to credit cards that are in my name that she forced me to sign up for because she doesnt have credit. When I was younger I had a joint savings account with her so she could blow money on my dads gambling and alcohol problems. When asking for the money back she said no. I really dont want to go bankrupt. Should I sue her?  <response>: First things first - even if you win a lawsuit for some of these items, what will happen is that the court will enter a whats called a judgment against her basically a court order demanding that she pay you back. If she doesnt pay the judgment, you can go back to court and ask the court to garnish her bank account or wages to force collection of the judgment, but some of her income will be excluded from garnishment so that she has some money to live on. If she barely makes enough money to get by on now, that may mean that the court wont garnish anything from her wages, at which point you would be out of options with no legal way to force her to pay you back the money. People with poverty level incomes and no assets are sometimes called judgment-proof because of this; the prevailing wisdom is that theres not point in suing judgment-proof people because even if you win, the court cant force them to pay up.It sounds like you mother committed at least some amount of identity theft against you, here. The credit cards, you seem to imply that you signed up for at her urging, so that isnt identity theft - you may be able to sue her for the balanceinterestfees if that was entirely her spending, but if shes judgment-proof you may not get that back even if you win. Ditto for the savings account - I dont think she committed an actual crime there if you willingly provided her access to the account; you may be able to sue, but no guarantee youll be able to collect.That leaves the mortgage - by the sounds of it, she forged your signature on the loan docs, which means she likely committed both the crime of mortgage fraud and the crime of identity theft. These are serious charges - you can start the process of getting them off your credit by reporting the identity theft to the police, but that will lead to an investigation which may result in your mother being charged with serious crimes. Just to double check - you say there is an application for a mortgage on your credit report. Do you mean you see a credit inquiry on your profile, as if she is currently applying for the loan but it hasnt been issued yet, or you see a completed mortgage loan on your credit profile? 