GETTING PAID PART III

©2021 Brian Babcock

In parts one and two, we looked at how you get a judgment for an unpaid account, or damages. Getting a judgment does not get you paid. In order to get paid, you must collect on the judgment.

The process is similar in Superior Court and Small Claims Court, with a few important differences.

Occasionally, a debtor agrees to pay the judgment, either immediately or on terms. But what if they don’t?

After obtaining judgment, you should file a writ of seizure and sale. This allows you to send the sheriff or a bailiff out to seize and sell either real estate or other assets of the debtor. The magic of the writ is that even if there is nothing to sell today, the writ attaches to future acquired property. It also may get you paid just by sitting there, if the debtor owns property they later sell or mortgage. We sometimes see old judgments satisfied in this way.

The next way to get paid is garnishment. This process lets you obtain a court order to have a portion of wages, bank accounts, or other debts of your debtor, paid to the court to satisfy your judgment, together with other judgments.

How do you know what assets to seize, debts to garnish, or employers paying wages to your debtor? You conduct a judgment debtor examination. Here, the process differs markedly between Superior Court and Small Claims. In Small Claims, you pay a modest fee and a deputy judge assists and supervises the examination. In Superior Court, you or your lawyer must arrange and conduct the examination out of court. In either case, failure by the debtor to attend, or to answer questions, may result in them being found in contempt of court. Again, that in itself does not get you paid, but it sure is an incentive for the debtor to co-operate.

Be aware though that money collected through the court will be shared with other creditors. Collecting directly may increase your recovery.

This brief outline only scratches the surface of the process, and the cost, or collection. It does not even mention more complex remedies such as receivership or insolvency proceedings. Except in the case of the smallest of Small

Claims judgment, consulting Weilers Law about collection may avoid unnecessary expense, and increase your chance of recovery.