Property And Judgment Liens

I am not an attorney, I am a judgment referral specialist (Judgment Broker). This article is based on my experience in California. Laws are different in every state, and nothing in any of my articles should ever be considered legal advice. This article is my opinion on property liens and debtors.

One of the tools of judgment enforcement is to record a judgment lien on a debtor's real estate properties. When the debtor owns a property alone, you record a judgment lien at the county recorder or a department of state, and arrange for the county or state entity to mail the notice of the lien to the debtor.

Sometimes you must mail the lien notice yourself. If you mail the judgment lien notice, it is usually best to mail it by itself, because one need to take care when communicating with debtors. If you know the laws, you can include other documents in the same envelope, but never threaten anyone.

There is a group of FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) laws that mandate how one may communicate with judgment debtors, or tell third-parties about the debt owed by judgment debtors. When a county or government entity mails a lien notice to the debtor, FDCPA the laws do not apply. (Government entities may mail notices to whoever they want.)

What if the judgment debtor is a co-owner of a house, and the other owner(s) are not liable for the judgment? There are three issues to consider - notice, incentive, and research.

When the lien notice gets mailed out, it may be noticed by the other property owners. It is a long shot, however sometimes when the other property owners know about the judgment lien, they might encourage the judgment debtor to repay or settle the judgment to get the lien removed.

Once one records an abstract of judgment (or any other judgment lien) with the recorder's office, it becomes a matter of public record and as such, you can mail a copy of the recorded abstract to the other owners of the property. (The county or state will mail a copy to the debtor, but not the other owners.)

If you are filing the judgment lien in person, buy a certified copy for your records, make a copy of that, and mail a copy to the co-owners. Communicating with a third-party about a judgment debtor's debt does fall under the FDCPA, however mailing them a public notice does not. Whether you include any cover letter or return address is your choice. You may get lucky and a co-owner might pressure the judgment debtor to pay, so that title to their property is not clouded.

Abstracts of judgment are public notices available to anyone for inspection. They are usually picked up as public records by credit reporting agencies and title companies, who employ people and systems, to include them on an individual's credit and title report.

Such entities don't worry about receiving and distributing this data in the context of their work. Because liens are public records, anyone can access the information without worries about the FDCPA. Judgment Lien, bankruptcy records, and criminal convictions are all public records.

If you are at the recorder's office, do a search of the judgment debtor's name on the grantor/grantee index. If they have other properties, write down the addresses and the tax ID numbers, known as Assessor Parcel Numbers (APNs). Then, go to the County Treasurer/Tax Collectors office (usually in the same government building as the Recorder's office), and run the APNs on their publicly available computer terminals.

State law usually prohibits the disclosure of the property owner's name and address over the Internet, however anyone can access this information at the terminal in the Tax Collectors office. There are also some specialized real estate databases one can subscribe to, that provides this information on the web, however they are expensive.

Search each of the APNs, and you can see what names is on the bi-annual tax bill and where it gets mailed. This will often show the best address to mail lien notices to, and often you can find home addresses.