Lazy Judgment Enforcers

I am not a lawyer, I am a Judgment and Collections Broker. This article is my opinion. If you ever need legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.

Every day, we get at least one phone call from someone that owns a judgment, that is "sick and tired of lazy judgment enforcers".

For example, today someone called, and said they have had their million dollar judgment with three different judgment enforcers and one contingency collection lawyer, and none of them made any progress "because they are all lazy".

When we asked about their judgment debtor, the reason for their repeated experience became clear. Their debtor was a world-class scammer, that had deeply hidden their assets, and "all you have to do is find out where they hid it". That is the problem.

When the economy was booming, it was fairly easy to find contingency experts or buyers who would work on pure contingency, fronting massive amounts of time and money chasing frauds that had hidden their assets.

In a down economy, most enforcers, contingency lawyers, and contingency collection agencies, have become very picky about which judgments they will work on a pure contingency basis.

Put yourself in the enforcer's shoes: You are offering them a million dollar judgment against a 72-year old man with deeply hidden assets.

Two other enforcers tried before to recover it, however they "did nothing". They both told you they did not want to spend any more money trying to recover your judgment.

Now, your offer (that no enforcer is willing to take) is: "You can recover my judgment - if you will agree to pure contingency, constantly update me with your progress reports, and should you not make real progress, return it to me within two years."

What is wrong with your offer? Your judgment is very difficult - and you are asking for the enforcer to spend a large amount of their own time and money upfront, and agree to your special conditions and time limits.

Ignoring for now, that time limits might be considered bailment in some places, and that most enforcers will not allow you to micro-manage them; the real show stopper is the judgment debtor's assets are "deeply hidden".

Most often, when you think a judgment enforcer is lazy, it means there is not an obvious or reasonable way to recover any debtor assets to satisfy the judgment.

When times were good, there was an assumption of upward mobility that made judgment buyers willing to take more risks. The economy has affected judgment enforcers as much as most other businesses. Most judgment enforcers are now becoming very conservative.

Also during good times, sneaky judgment debtors would sometimes carelessly spend money on things that left records. Now, even rich and sneaky debtors, are laying low because they know hungry creditors are after their assets.

The economy has caused most judgment buyers to go out of business, and the few that are left, will buy judgments for more than three cents on the dollar when the debtor has deeply hidden their assets.

If your debtor has deeply hidden their assets, and nobody will buy, or wants to try to enforce your judgment on a contingency basis, you might want to first, hire a private investigator to find some of those hidden assets.

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Slow Judgment Enforcers

I am not a lawyer, I am a judgment and debt referral expert (Judgment and Collection Agency Broker). This article is my opinion, based on my experience in California, and laws vary in each state. If you ever need legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.

You found, or were referred to, a professional judgment enforcer, collection agency, or a contingency collections lawyer. They were highly recommended to you, yet they have not made any progress on recovering your judgment in a month.

You gave the judgment enforcer valuable information such as where the judgment debtor worked, and the debtor's banking information. However, the "recovery specialist" still has not recovered any of your money. How could they not make any real progress when they have had your judgment for a whole month?

It has been about a month, and when you asked them what they were doing with your judgment, they said there was another levy ahead of theirs, so their wage levy attempt did not work. Or, that they are waiting for the sheriff to serve a levy. Or, that they are still looking for assets. If they are professionals, how come they are not smart enough to get around such small roadblocks and force my debtor to pay?

These kinds of questions show that you do not know the realities of enforcing judgments. It sometimes takes a month for a court to approve a form, or for a sheriff to have time to perform a levy, and anything can happen to prevent or delay success when trying to recover a judgment.

It is rare for any action to recover a judgment to get a cash payout within one month. It can take that long just to get an assignment of judgment filed or other documents back from a court. Often, a demand letter is sent where required by law, or where there is any doubt about having identified the correctly named judgment debtor. Many times there is a 30 day waiting period for the judgment debtor to contest a debt, even a judgment debt.

Yes, I know, a judgment is not just a debt, and perhaps your judgment was not even related to a consumer debt. However, the FDCPA and FCRA laws are so strong, that many enforcers follow them out of habit. Some also follow 30 day waiting periods by habit, and perhaps they are being a bit over-cautious. The laws protecting debtors are so strong, many think that it is better to be too cautious, than not cautious enough.

There is a lot more work, expense, research, and waiting, than meets the eye in judgment recovery. Even if waiting for 30 days, most enforcers are looking for assets or recording liens. Among the many things that can prevent a judgment from being recovered, there are four additional situations that can really slow down a judgment enforcement.

1) A poor debtor - no enforcer can recover assets that are not there.

2) Slow courts and civil sheriffs - are downsizing like crazy and delaying paperwork more than ever before.

3) Discovering available assets takes time. Private Investigator results can take weeks or longer, debtor and third-party exams can take months, or years when debtors and third parties are particularly stubborn or hard to serve.

4) Debtors that do not care about anything may slow recovery down, because only legal methods can be used to recover judgments. Some debtors do not care if their driving license gets suspended, if there are civil warrants for their arrest, liens on their upside down property, or that a judgment shows up on their credit report. When served, some debtors do not care or show up at court, and in many places, contempt of civil court has no repercussions for judgment debtors.

Often, judgment owners that want help recovering their judgment have previously tried to recover it themselves first. You may have already tried to levy the judgment debtor's wages and bank account, and spent lots of time and money with little or no result. Do not be shocked if a judgment enforcer later tries the same actions, and again gets very little results, because there are few cost-effective tools one can use to recover a judgment.

Most (especially screened) judgment enforcers are very good, and have a long term record of recovering judgments. The problem usually is, you have a difficult or broke debtor. Judgment Enforcers are not magicians, they can only use legal methods to recover judgments, and sometimes re-trying steps you took in the past, cannot be avoided.

When there is another ongoing wage levy ahead of your levy attempt, your levy will not attach. When a debtor does not care if their license is suspended, what can be done? If you catch them driving without a license and report this to a police officer, and even if the debtor gets in trouble, that will not help get your judgment paid.

When a debtor has no available assets showing, the best judgment enforcer in the world usually will not make progress, especially on small judgments where the debtor is down on their luck, poor, does not care, or hides their assets.

If you got your judgment back from the judgment enforcer (they re-assigned the judgment back to you), it is unlikely you, or another judgment enforcer, could recover your judgment any faster. Judgment enforcers only get paid if they recover your money, so often the problem is with your judgment debtor.

How to Fight a Credit Card Lawsuit: Request to Admit Facts Collection Lawsuit   Should You Give Up Ownership Of Your Judgment?   Responding to a Collection Agency's Interrogatories Correctly   Receiving a Summons: How to Answer a Summons for Debt Properly