Enforcing Tough Judgments

I am not a lawyer, I am a judgment referral specialist (Judgment Broker). Most judgment recovery courses and seasoned judgment enforcers recommend to people to screen judgment debtors carefully, and avoid taking assignment of any judgment unless the debtor has obvious assets showing. (For example - jobs, bank accounts, businesses, or properties.)

The problem with such good advice, is that more than 95% of judgment debtors are not doing very well, and do not have obvious assets showing. Most judgments are difficult, yet every debtor has to eat, and many have (or can get) some kind of income or assets that can be used to at least partly satisfy the judgment. The average judgment is difficult until one digs down and locate the income or asset.

Judgment Brokers, judgment listing services, and suppliers of judgment leads, are sometimes held to an impossible standard, and some people assert they list mostly difficult judgments. Most listings of judgment leads vary from easy to difficult. Some judgment leads are free unless they pan out, which makes sense if judgments are not ideal.

One problem with all judgment lists are that the easy judgments are taken very quickly, giving an incorrect assumption that they list only difficult judgments. Because most judgments are crummy, most judgment lists include difficult judgments. A good judgment broker attempts to separate crummy judgments, but judgment classification is more art than science.

A decade ago, most judgment recovery specialists did quite well rejecting all but the easiest of judgments. Now, any judgment recovery specialist that only works easy judgments, will have long dry spells between finding more "good" judgments.

Now, judgment recovery specialists must begin looking at average judgments to work, while waiting for an easy judgment. While the debtor's situation is very important, the location of the judgment debtor is also important. Gone are the days where one could easily enforce a judgment by remote control, using only the post office.

Judgments found on "difficult" lists are not impossible, but they are not easy. Many judgments on difficult lists, get recovered or partially recovered. Judgments may go on difficult lists when the debtor's full situation is unknown, or when too many judgment enforcers will not even look at the judgment situation, or when a previous recovery specialist tried to recover the judgment by remote control.

If you are close to the judgment debtor, you might want to consider difficult judgments. As long as you do not waste time and money on poor judgment debtors, there is nothing wrong with difficult judgments as long-term investments.

By working local judgments, you might discover by a drive-by, or by chatting with neighbors, how the judgment debtor makes their living, and you might discover when they can be served. You might find out they live with a relative, who can be served to answer questions about the debtor's assets.

You never know for sure what will work, the key is to try all the cheap and easy methods first with judgment debtors that are close to you. If you begin to enforce a difficult judgment, you are not obligated to keep it. You can return it to the Original Judgment Creditor. You can also just check the judgment debtor's situation every year, you may find an asset to satisfy the judgment.

Slam-dunk judgments are what all judgment recovery specialists desire. However, many easy judgments are never seen, because they are often already satisfied. As long as you do not waste time or money on permanently judgment-proof debtors, you will increase the chances of making more money by recovering more judgments that are local to you.

The average charge to enforce small (under 10K) judgments is about 50 percent. It might be fair to charge a bit more on difficult judgments.