General advice about civil Judgments and Judgment recovery.
I am
not a lawyer, but I have observed and worked at Judgment recovery from
every angle. I was defrauded, and paid a lot for lawyers to get, and
keep my judgments enforceable.
The tips below are my opinion and
not legal advice. If you have questions or are planning any legal
action, please consult an attorney.
I learned that a Judgment is
not cash. I was shocked to learn that after I paid a lot to lawyers, the
courts did not care if I was repaid for my Judgment or not. I could not
afford to keep paying lawyers, so I made it a mission to learn how to
do my own Judgment Recovery, which led me to enforce Judgments for
others.
I learned Judgment-related laws, studied more than 100
books, studied training courses, and enforced 100s of Judgments. To
solve the problem of finding good Judgment enforcers nationwide, I
started and manage a successful Judgment referral business that helps
everyone except debtors.
Over a decade or so, I heard many
stories, and saw what happened before and after people got their
Judgments. I am not a lawyer and this article is not legal advice. These
are just some tips that I wish I had read before I sued someone, and
tried to enforce my first judgment. Here is my Judgment Recovery tip
list:
1) Before you try to sue someone, try and settle with
them. If you pay to get a judgment, and pay again to get it enforced;
you are not getting the full amount you lost or are owed. You are often
better off by settling first. Try and work it out. Be nice and don't
lose your temper. That is good advice in life, and with the next topic:
2)
Research your debtor. Make sure they are really who they said they are.
Amazingly, sometimes people lie. Find all the Also Known As (AKAs) of
the debtor. If Bill Jones ripped you off, find out if his name is also
William Alfred-Alfonzo Jones. Try and find out how old (date of birth is
best) they are, where they live, work(ed), their SS number, phones,
anything you can before you sue them. Once you sue them (or lose your
temper), it will cost more and be harder to get this kind of info.
Search
your local court or their web sites. Does this person already have a
lot of lawsuits against them? Are they dirt poor? If so, maybe just drop
the whole thing. If they go bankrupt, it's over. (Unless you pay a
lawyer to contest the discharge of your Judgment in bankruptcy, that
sometimes works.)
3) Include everyone you can on the lawsuit.
(And every AKA you know of.) As an example, you bought a fence from ABC,
Inc, and in mild weather, the fence fell over a week later, because
they did not use concrete to set the fence posts; like they wrote in
their proposal. They refuse to fix it or refund you, so you decide to
sue them.
If ABC, Inc. contacted you about a new fence in the
mail, and then salesman Barney Google convinced you to buy it, and
Mortimer Snerd installed it; try and sue all three. You will have a
better chance of a settlement or collecting if you include all parties.
It's difficult and expensive to add defendants later. Sometimes the
court won't let you keep all the defendants you first included. If you
were defrauded, perhaps include words about that in the "complaint"
papers that you wish made into a Judgment.
4) Don't skimp on
serving the Debtor(s). Have a Sheriff or a Registered Process Server
personally serve them. If your debtor can't be served, why bother suing
them? The cost of professional process serving can be added to the
judgment amount. A professional process server can sometimes serve those
who try and evade service.
5) A default Judgment (where the
debtor did not show up) is sometimes a hollow victory. Many debtors do
not care about default Judgments. This is because the common sense
definition of a default, does not apply in civil courts. Most of the
time when you default, you lose. In civil court a default is often a
second chance for a debtor to avoid paying a Judgment.
If you, or
a Judgment enforcer takes their assets, they care very much. They can
ask the court to agree with their motion to vacate the Judgment. If they
succeed on a motion to vacate, you lose the judgment, and have to start
over with a new trial. Proof of service is very important.
6)
You might not win the lawsuit, sometimes justice is not done. If it's
over, it's over, learn from it and move on. If you win, you have won the
battle, not the war. You get rights to interest on what is owed you,
but will you be able to collect it? Judgments are only good for a
certain number of years unless renewed. Property values are down, and
it's a hassle to domesticate Judgments if the debtor moves.
7)
Anything can happen. The debtor might pay you right away. That does not
happen as often as it should. They might go bankrupt. They might
appeal, they might do a motion to vacate. There are other legal tricks
they can play too. They might say they will pay or settle, but don't.
Sometimes logic plays no part. Sometimes a debtor would rather pay, or
ends up paying twice as much money avoiding your Judgment, as they would
have spent by simply paying you.
8) You can try and collect it
yourself, and might spend lots of time and money trying to get your
money back. This often results in "throwing good money after bad". Or
you can pay for an attorney. Or find a mortal (non-attorney) experienced
Judgment enforcer to do all the work, and spend the money, to recover
your money.
9) If you hire a lawyer, most often you have to pay
by the hour, even if you don't get a dime of your money back. If you
assign (turn over, sell, sign over, give up ownership of) your Judgment
to a Judgment enforcer, you have to pay about 1/2 or what they recover
on your money. That seems like a lot, but it's fair considering how much
time, work, money, and study it takes, and all the things that can go
wrong. When a Judgment enforcer is successful, it costs the debtor much
more than if they had paid you in the first place.
10) In this
economy, it can take a very long time to recover money. As mentioned on
tip 1, settling is best, but it rarely works out. Debtors often do not
pay after offering to settle.
In summary, the choices for
Judgment Recovery of money from a debtor are:
A) Successfully
settle with the debtor.
B) Enforce the Judgment yourself.
C)
Hire a lawyer.
D) Find a Judgment enforcer - this is the most
popular option as Judgment enforcers have made careers out of the
situation caused by the laws of the land. A Judgment enforcer maximizes
the chances of a successful Judgment Recovery.
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