subject: Collect My Judgment [print this page] I am not an attorney, I am a judgment brokerI am not an attorney, I am a judgment broker. This article is my opinion, and is not legal advice, based on my experiences in California. If you ever need legal advice or a strategy to use, you should contact an attorney.
Before a judgment can be sold, or anything may be collected on a judgment, it is very important to identify precisely your debtor.
It is critical to know precisely whom the debtor is, and what available assets they might have, before attempting to start a lawsuit or to collect judgments. After that, you need to know for certain that the judgment is effective and correct.
A judgment may be flawed, making them very difficult to recover. There might be substantial issues to fix, before judgments may be collected. It's absolutely necessary to determine whether or not the judgment is enforceable.
The first matter is, who is named on your lawsuit that later became a judgment? Only entities or persons precisely mentioned inside the body of the judgment owes you money. One can't count on the captions, which are the abbreviated names listed near the top of judgments. Judgments state precisely who is liable and the amount they owe, only in their body.
Many lawsuits do not name the person or entity that owes money correctly or specifically enough. Some lawsuits make judgments that will never be enforced.
Typical mistakes with lawsuits are not correctly spelling people's names, not paying enough attention to a company's DBA or corporate status, or not researching the defendants sufficiently before suing them. Also, the proof of service is vitally important. An incorrect name, or a defective proof of service, may cause the judgment set-aside (vacated).
Because I am a judgment broker, I see many thousands of judgments. I've read a few judgments which showed the judgment debtor's date of birth, age, partial SS number, and a current address, in the judgment's body. That is simply awesome, I wish every judgment included all that information.
Too many times, judgments against debtors with popular names end up valueless. If you sue Dan Debtor, who seems to stay at 123 Scammer's Lane, there might be potential difficulties.
What if the debtor's Dad, Son, Grandfather, and Uncle, all have exactly same name? What if the debtor's name is really common, and he was just a guest where he got served papers for the lawsuit? What if he never stayed, paid rent, or paid bills, at that address?
What if you won your judgment by default? Suddenly, one might not know for sure about Dan Debtor owes you the money. It might be very troublesome to perform levies, examinations, or garnishments, as it will be so easy for a Dan Debtor to say "it's not me, it's my...".
In that default judgment situation, it's best to serve people first, to get them into court, to work out the "is this the correct judgment debtor?" issue, prior to wasting time and money, searching for jobs or banks of the wrong individual; or paying a Sheriff to potentially levy the wrong individual's assets.
Make certain to name and identify the right person or entity for your lawsuit, and if trying to recover your judgment. There must not be any uncertainty on who exactly is, the judgment debtor.
