Collecting on Your Judgment
You have received a judgment in your favor, but how are you going to collect what is owed to you? Thankfully, as stated in part 2 of this blog post series, there are legal processes to assist you if you don’t receive payment. The last blog post discussed the first step: perfecting the judgment.To perfect, you have to file an abstract of judgment. This blog post describes the process of getting a writ of execution to seize property in order to satisfy a judgment.
A writ of execution orders the Sheriff or local law enforcement to seize the other party’s property, to sell it at an auction, and then use the profits of the auction to satisfy your judgment. This writ can be obtained 30 days after the judgment is entered by the court.
The hardest part of collecting the judgment is that you must locate the other party’s non-exempt property that can be used to satisfy the judgment. The court and the Sheriff will not help find this information. Sometimes the information might be found in public records, court documents that asked about the party’s property or the party’s credit information. There are even businesses that can search for you. One important issue is that there is certain property that you cannot make the other party sell to satisfy the judgment. That property is exempt. Examples of exempt property are: the other party’s house, wages (if you received a judgment for child support or alimony then wages are non-exempt), and personal property, such as jewelry, cars, and furniture, up to a certain amount. Unfortunately, exempt property may be a lot of what the party owns. If you cannot find any non-exempt property, then you might not be able to collect the judgment. But if you have located non-exempt property, you can provide this information to the Sheriff.
When the other party doesn’t have enough money in their possession to satisfy the judgment or you cannot find non-exempt property to satisfy the judgment, you can try a garnishment action. If a third party owes money to the other party in your judgment, a garnishment orders the third party to give it to you instead. This usually applies to bank accounts. You have to file a garnishment action with the court. This action creates a whole new lawsuit which means that this process can be costly. But, it may pay off if the court finds the money.
If you do find non-exempt property that is not readily executed upon by the Sheriff, another option may be a turnover proceeding. Here, you are asking the court for an order that is enforceable by contempt which makes the other party give you specific items of non-exempt property. Other post-judgment remedies may also be available, such as receivership.
THE TAKEAWAY: collecting a judgment can get complicated when the other party doesn’t want to or cannot pay. If you want to collect, then you should record the judgment (an abstract of judgment), find property that satisfies the debt (non-exempt property), and tell the Sheriff to seize and sell the property (using a writ of execution). Collecting on a judgment often involves work. But, hopefully, if you follow these steps then you will be able to prevent your judgment from going dormant and collect on your judgment.
– The Litigation Team
Ethan | Mark