Collecting on an old judgement, advice?
Hudson Valley Carpenter
| Posted in Business on
Another thread got me thinking about an old judgement I have against a former tenant in California, the only renter I’ve ever had. With interest it’s up to about $10K now but the guy has disappeared from sight.
I’ve checked with collection agencies but they all seem to want carte blanche on every expense item, before starting the search.
So what are my options? Any solid advice will be much appreciated.
Replies
Sell the debt to an agency. Youo'll only get about 10%, but ...
SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
Sam,
So after they steal 90% of my money, what do I do? Hold them up in the parking lot? ;-)
HOw do you see that they are stealling 90%.How much of the debt do you have now? Zero.If you do sell it to a collection agency and get 10% how do you know if they will get anything?Now I don't know if you will even get 10% or not.Depends on how "good" you judgement is. How old. If it has been updated. If it appears that he has any assests...You might want to spend a hundred or two for a PI to track him down and see if he has any assests..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Just a figure of speech Bill,
You know...an attempt at dark humor to get a chuckle off the irony of getting screwed, either way.
Having once spent over two years getting $47K from a client (all I was owed, plus legal costs) I wouldn't do it again.
Next time I'll take the law in my own hands, and darn quick; it'll feel better.
Forrest - future BT member #25178490; Federal Pen
Years ago, I sued the guy I worked for part time for back pay. He, too, dropped out of sight. A couple of years later, I thought about it, and remembered that his primary job was selling cars. I went through the Yellow Pages and called every dealer asking for the guy. Finally, somebody said, no, he quit here about 6 months ago, I think he's working for XYZ Dealership.
Called them, sure enough, he was there.
Never got my money, statute of limitations was up, but I harassed the s#it out of him for months. Got a good laugh, anyway.Maybe I need to go find him again! ;-)
Better accomodations than you will be able to afford on S.S. ;-)
I got stiffed for the rent and the renters busted up the place, They were girls that lived with girls and i never saw any boys, They had some kind of love triangle gone wrong and threw each others stuff in the yard. I found pics they took of each other, Very disgusting by the way, I knew where they worked and thought about posting the pics on the door where they worked, i guess im not that mean, Funny one girl or lady was a shrink for low income people, Go figure she needed mental help herself
c'mon it's the day of the internet. i'd post them pics on craigslist,all the adult sites i could find with names and #'s.let every pervert in a 500 mile area call them. larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
thats pretty nasty i would never do that in a million years....... aw ya talked me into it;)
Chasing deadbeats for cash is always a problem. I often tell my clients that, if they had the money, and cared, they would have paid you in the first place. And some folks have elevated debt evasion to a high art. In your case, the first thing to do is be sure the judgment doesn't go stale -- in Pennsylvania, you need to renew them every 6 years. It's just a matter of filing a one page renewal with the clerk, but if you don't do it, the judgment expires. Do you have any information on the deadbeat? -- a Soc. Sec. number is the golden key to finding "lost" individuals. Get whatever info you have to a skip tracer, PI, or attorney with access to skip trace databases. It'll cost maybe a couple of hundred bucks, but there is a good chance he can be located. (You'd be surprised what I can find out about you, your family, your neighbors, etc. with just a name and SS no., just by using Lexis.) Find out where the individual in question has moved to and transfer the judgment there.
All that said, you still only have about a 10% chance of ever collecting a dime. Remember my advice to clients? Judgments are only useful when dealing with debtors who actually care. Most don't. They just drift away, never accumulating enough to collect against. And even if they do, and you spend a ton of $$ chasing them and get close to collection, they file for bankruptcy and your debt vanishes like magic. Your best chance is probably to keep the judgment current and, if possible, register it wherever he moves to and hope he inherits something or wants to get a loan or buy property.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Thanks Mike,
Although it isn't the magic that I'd hoped to hear, it helps me to understand the options and whether they're worth pursuing. This guy may have acquired some wealth, who knows? So I'll follow your advice and see what I can discover.
Peter
What is Lexis?
Thanks,
Bruce
"What is Lexis?"
Lexis is a database service used, primarily, by lawyers to do legal research. It has most all the case law, statutes, etc., loaded into a database that is word searchable. (Related service, Nexis, is similar but for news instead of legal.) They have branched out into loading all sorts of public (and some not-so-public) information into databases such as vehicle registrations, property ownership/transfers, judgments, census data (like who your neighbors & relations are) for use by attorneys under permissable circumstances. There's stuff in there about you that you don't know yourself.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA