Confession of judgment before default on certain installment contracts invalid
§ 3201. Confession of judgment before default on certain installment contracts invalid. Notwithstanding the provisions of section thirty-two hundred eighteen, no judgment by confession shall be entered on any affidavit which was executed prior to the time a default in the payment of an installment occurs in connection with the purchase for fifteen hundred dollars or less of any commodities for any use other than a commercial or business use upon any plan of deferred payments whereby the price or cost is payable in two or more installments. Any judgment entered in violation of this section is void and unenforceable.
You cannot pre-sign away a judgment on a small consumer installment purchase. A confession-of-judgment affidavit signed before the buyer actually defaults is void and unenforceable when the purchase is $1,500 or less ★, for non-commercial/non-business use, paid in two or more installments. This is the one carve-out from § 3218.
Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.
This provision appears in Volume 2 — The JG-22 CPLR and in Volume 1 — The JG-22 in Plain English.