Winning a money judgment puts a judgment creditor in an interesting position. Winning means having to collect, but collection is rarely as easy as creditors think it will be. So a judgment creditor has to decide how much time and effort he wants to put into collection. He might even have to consider walking away and simply writing off his losses.
What if walking away is not an option? What if the creditor absolutely must have the money for whatever reason? Then he needs to be prepared for what could be a very long and protracted exercise in patience and frustration.
Collection Is Up to Creditors
One of the many things that makes civil court different from criminal court is the way judgments are enforced. In a criminal proceeding, a court enforces a guilty verdict by imposing a sentence. The sentence is then carried out by a combination of law enforcement and the penal system. That is not how things work in civil court.
A civil court will only get involved in enforcement when a creditor needs further court rulings. For example, obtaining a writ of execution to seize a debtor’s property requires a court hearing and a judge’s signature. But in terms of the day-to-day collection efforts, courts don’t get involved. Collection is the creditor’s responsibility.
Enlisting Help Is Normal
It is normal for creditors to enlist help in their collection efforts. One option is for the creditor to leave collection to an attorney. The attorney attempts to make contact with the debtor. If necessary, the attorney will seek writs of garnishment, writs of execution, or even judgment liens.
A second option is to turn the collection over to a specialized collection agency. Salt Lake City’s Judgment Collectors is one such agency. They can do the same things attorneys can do, including:
- Making contact with the debtor
- Attempting to negotiate a payment plan
- Filing paperwork with county courts
- Running asset searches to locate nonexempt assets
- Employing skip tracing to find debtors attempting to hide
A major advantage of bringing in a collection agency is specialization. Attorneys rarely specialize in debt collection. They have other things more worthy of their attention. But debt collection is a collection agency’s bread and butter. As for an agency like Judgment Collectors, judgments are a specialty. They do not work on anything else.
Using Every Tool at the Creditor’s Disposal
In the event that walking away is not an option, creditors need to be prepared to use every tool at their disposal. Debtors may not have the ability to pay an entire judgment upfront. Some may have no willingness to pay. Others might simply fight paying just because they can.
Fortunately, creditors do have access to a variety of tools. They include things like wage garnishment, property liens, and writs of execution. Each tool has its advantages and disadvantages.
Collecting Before a Judgment Expires
Something else a creditor needs to consider is judgment expiration. Judgments come with statutes of limitations that average 7-10 years. Most states allow renewal. What does this mean to a creditor unwilling to walk away? The creditor needs to keep the statute of limitations in mind. He needs to renew prior to expiration in order to continue collection efforts past the original statute of limitations.
Collecting money judgments is rarely easy. It can be frustrating enough to send some creditors walking away and writing off their losses. But when walking away isn’t an option, a creditor could have a lot of work ahead of him. For right or wrong, that is the nature of the beast.
