Why Assign Your Judgment?

At my work, far too often I hear something similar to "I assigned my judgment to Randy Recoveryguy, and now their website is gone and his telephone is disconnected". I have written articles on the way to solve this kind of problem, however the remedies aren't simple. The usual solutions are to schedule a hearing and file a motion at the court, for a resumption of creditor's rights, or to void the assignment of judgment. My articles are my opinions and are not, legal advice. I am a judgment referral expert, and not an attorney. If you ever want legal advice or a strategy to use, you should contact an attorney.

Many people with judgments don't have the time, funds, or patience required, to recover any judgment money. When a judgment is large and the judgment debtor is rich, it's easy to locate a contingency collection lawyer or someone that buys judgments; or any other type of contingency expert, including a judgment enforcer or a collection agency. Unfortunately, very few judgments are like that. Although the web is full of misleading hopes of methods of getting money quickly for judgments, there are just a few real options for owners of average judgments, that are all not quick ways to recover judgment money.

1) Recover your judgment yourself, however that costs money, and is a hassle, and is time consuming.

2) Sell your judgment for pennies on the dollar, or waste your time attempting to get more than that for a cash up-front basis.

3) Find a collection agency. In the past, most collection agencies used the telephone and the post office to do much or all of their work, and didn't even try to do what was needed to collect judgments. Some attempted to transition into recovering judgments, and quit after the debtors did not respond to just phone calls and letters.

There are a few collection agencies which have successfully transitioned into recovering judgments, and the best are owned by lawyers and/or use attorneys to recover judgments. The good part is you keep ownership of your judgment. The bad part is with few exceptions, most collection agencies aren't good at collecting judgments. Most don't accept any judgments, or not from individual judgment creditors, unless screened and referred by a judgment broker.

4) Find a collection lawyer. You retain ownership of your judgment. Usually, you will need to pay them by the hour. Most people with average judgments will not find a contingency lawyer or a good collection company to attempt to recover their judgment, unless they are referred by a judgment referral expert.

5) Assign your judgment to a judgment enforcer, which means you give up ownership of your judgment. Assigning your judgment means that you forfeit ownership of the judgment permanently. It's a one-way sale which can't be undone except by located and obtaining some cooperation from the person you assigned your judgment to, or paying and working for a court order voiding the assignment to them.

Keep in mind, judgment recovery is usually a very slow process, and the odds are overwhelmingly against a full recovery. If your judgment debtor is poor, it really doesn't matter that much which recovery choice you make, or whether or not you get the judgment assigned back to you.

While most judgment recovery specialists do the right thing, and return judgments they have no chance of recovering, not all do. In our economic situation, the problem of flaking judgment enforcers is getting really serious. I know of many cases where judgment recovery specialists won't release a judgment, even when they don't do anything to try to recover it, not even recording a lien. This is not good, because anyone without any plan to recover a judgment should not keep it long term. Memberships in judgment organizations seem not to guarantee anything.

There is one very valid reason for an enforcer not to return judgments, and that's when they are making progress, or have any plan to make progress in the future. Besides that single good reason, these are the top four reasons enforcers do not return judgments assigned to them:

1) After some judgment recovery specialists exit the business, they don't care enough about their obligations. They do not return judgments, and disconnect their telephone and move.

2) If judgment enforcers run out of money they can't make progress on any judgment. Certain enforcers cannot even afford to pay the ten dollar notary charge required to assign the judgment back to you. In this case, offer to pay the enforcer a small sum to return your judgment.

3) When a judgment enforcers gets sick, finds a day job, dials, has a death in their family, goes to jail, files for bankruptcy protection, etc. Sometimes the judgments assigned to them are the last thing they have on their mind.

4) If enforcers take all judgments which come in, when they have no plans or possibility of enforcing them, and for some reason, they refuse to return judgments when asked.

Be careful about assigning a judgment to a judgment enforcer not referred by someone that knows their long-term performance and history.

Comments? Questions? Email Here

© HowtoAdvice.com

How to Advice .com