How do you perfect your judgment?

Now that you understand judgments and you have a judgment in your favor, how are you going to collect what is owed to you? Thankfully, there are legal processes to assist you in enforcing the judgment. The court will not automatically help you. This blog post discusses the first step in the two-step process of “perfecting” your judgment: filing an abstract of judgment.

As stated, “perfecting” your judgment is a two-step process. Perfecting simply means that you have told the public that you intend to collect whatever was awarded to you by the court. The second step, a writ of execution, is used to help enforce the judgment and will be discussed in the next blog post.

When you tell the public about the judgment, you record it in the county records. This record is called an abstract of judgment. This initial step is important because it will place a lien on the non-exempt property of whomever you have a judgment against. When there is a lien on the non-exempt property, the property owner cannot sell the property if it is needed to satisfy your judgment. An abstract of judgment provides the names and address of the parties, lawsuit information, amount owed and any interest rate.

One issue to watch out for is a dormant judgment. A dormant judgment is where the second step of perfecting a judgment hasn’t been done. If you don’t try to execute on the judgment within 10 years then the judgment is dormant. Once the 10 years is up you cannot collect the debt, unless you revive the judgment within a specified time frame. Reviving a judgment means you have to go back to court within two years from when the judgment became dormant and ask the court to revive the judgment.

THE TAKEAWAY: There are processes to help you collect what is owed to you based on the judgment handed down by the court. If you follow the steps, then you will have the force of the court behind you. The first step is to perfect the judgment. When you perfect the judgment, you are telling the public that the other party owes you a certain amount. This step is accomplished by filing an abstract of judgment.
 
– The Litigation Team
Ethan | Mark
 

The Allen Firm, PC
181 S. Graham Street | Stephenville, Texas 76401 | allenlawfirm.com
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