Anyone have luck with collecting a judgment?

[creekland]

The hive has a vast experience with various things so I thought it was worth asking on here...

 

We have a court ordered judgment for roughly $2400 (+) from 2007 that the guy hasn't paid and we could really use the money. Via an internet search, it looks like the guy is living in a neighboring state.

 

How can we go about collecting on the judgment? Do we need to do a lawsuit in our state (where the debt occurred) or his new one? Is it better to sell the debt to a collector? If so, how do you find one?

 

ANY thoughts are welcome from those who have experience. We'd been ignoring it due to thinking it wasn't worth the time and aggravation, but have reached the state in our (personal) economy where we could really use at least some of the money from this.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I'm sorry that I know nothing about this but I'll bump this up for you!

[Amy in NH]

You may need to do a little investigating. If he owns a vehicle, put a lien on it. You can then seize and sell it for the amount of the lien.

 

You could also put a lien on any real estate property he owns, but I don't know how you can collect on that other than if it gets sold.

[creekland]

I searched on the web a little and submitted a form with a judgment "enforcer." Time will tell if they feel it is worth their effort or not - and if so, how much we would receive. It seems if they have assets they can be seized through the proper channels. If not, we're out of luck.

 

The guy admitted he owes us the money, but has made no effort to stay in contact or pay so much as a dime. We won the court judgment with him there agreeing he owed us the money, but he still never paid. He just disappeared thereafter. It was a minor irritation at the time, but now... now we could use even a portion of the $$ for an unexpected vet bill we owe. We'll see what the judgment firm comes up with. I guess I'm not holding my breath, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

[Mrs Mungo]

See if any of these help:

http://research.lawyers.com/Pennsylvania/PA-Collecting-the-Judgment.html

 

http://scheinfield.com/faqs.html (this one notes that you should be charging interest)

 

http://articles.directorym.com/Can_You_Collect_Your_Judgment_Pennsylvania-r935141-Pennsylvania.html

[KidsHappen]

We once won a judgement against a garage and the court informed us that it was up to us to collect the money ourselves or hire someone else to do it. We found that it wasn't too easy to put a lien on their property either and only the US Government can garnish someone's wages. We never did get the money.

[annandatje]

I won't go into mindnumbingly boring details of our litigation, but we did do an asset search of debtor. Search revealed he owned land in another state. Because of certain factors, we were able to persuade him to quit claim the land to us in lieu of cash payment of judgment. Land value was not close to what we were owed, but it was better than nothing.

[creekland]

Thanks for the links (they seem to have somewhat conflicting advice about garnishment - two say it can be done, one says no). I half wonder if he ever did declare bankruptcy or not. If so, it seems we're totally out of luck. I don't know how much he owed overall. I know he didn't own property (land/house). He did have a nice truck and a motorcycle.

 

No word from the judgment enforcer I filled out the form for yesterday. Maybe we'll hear from them today. My guess is they can do a basic search and let us know if there's a possibility or not. They're probably more expensive than a lawyer, but they don't charge any money up front nor get any if they don't collect. Right now, that suits our budget better.

 

Thanks to those with personal experiences too. They seem to match my expectations (we're not going to get much, if anything).