As a business owner, you made the difficult decision to take one of your customers to court. You and your attorneys prevailed. The court entered a judgment in your favor, one that requires the customer to pay what is legally owed along with your company’s court and attorney’s fees. But what options after winning do you have?
You have also discovered that courts, despite entering judgments against debtors, do not enforce said judgments. Except under rare circumstances requiring additional court intervention, enforcement is left to creditors. You have come to the conclusion that, if the debt is ever going to be paid, you or an agent of your company is going to have to collect on it.
You basically have four options (in descending order):
4. Forget About It
Your first of your options after winning a judgment is to acquiesce to the fact that the majority of judgments entered in the U.S. go forever unpaid. You can accept the fact that you do not have the time or resources to put into collection. In essence, you can take some satisfaction in knowing that the court ruled on your behalf, but then forget about any serious attempts to collect.
This first option is obviously not good for your business. If one customer can get away without paying, so can a second. That will be followed by a third, and a fourth, and so on. You might eventually find that your accounts receivables are unsustainable. That is no way to run a business.
3. Try to Collect Yourself
Your second option is to try to collect on the judgment yourself. You can assign one or two members of the bookkeeping department to contact the customer every few weeks and ask for payment. You can send emails, snail mail notices, etc. You can even make a few phone calls here and there. Just remember that the law is very specific about how far you can take collection efforts.
If your customer is savvy in regard to judgment collection, he may work very hard to evade collection efforts. And if that’s the case, you might find yourself giving up in frustration after months or years of trying.
2. Leave Collection to Your Attorney
The majority of companies attempting to collect judgments on their own don’t succeed. Judgment collection is a protracted process that takes time, patience, and a willingness to be even more tenacious than the debtor. In light of that, some companies turn judgment collection over to their attorneys.
An attorney is likely to get better results than a creditor, but most attorneys do not specialize in debt collection. Therefore, their abilities in this regard are limited. On top of that, an attorney will require up front or continual payments, even if they are unable to collect.
1. Turn the Judgment Over to Us
The best of your options after winning a judgment is to turn your it over to us. We are licensed to work in six states including Arizona, California, Idaho, Texas, Utah, and Washington. If you need assistance in any other states, there are some particularly good judgment collection agencies out there.
The advantages of turning your judgment over to Judgment Collectors are numerous and varied. Right off the top, we have both the experience and knowledge to prevail. Where your company is an expert in your industry, we are the experts in judgment collection. We know how to get the job done.
Note that Judgment Collectors works on a contingency model. You don’t pay a dime if we do not collect. You have nothing to lose by giving us a shot at collecting on your company’s outstanding judgments. If we cannot get the job done – and that’s not likely – anyone else who attempts to collect will have an equally difficult time.