Have you recently won a default judgment against another party? If so, we strongly urge you to consider bringing in a specialized collection agency right from the start. A default judgment could be a precursor to tougher collection than you might be anticipating.
Judgment Collectors is one such agency. We specialize in helping enforce judgments in Utah, Texas, California, and eight other states. Turning an unpaid judgment over to our team means letting us do the heavy lifting while you get back to more important things.
More About the Default Judgment
If you are not familiar with the default judgment, it is a judgment entered in civil court against a party who fails to participate in the legal process. There are lots of ways a debtor could choose to not participate, but the most common is not showing up in court on the scheduled date.
When a defendant doesn’t show, the court has no other choice but to render a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor. This is known as a default judgment. Another way to phrase it is to say that the plaintiff wins by default. But then what?
As with any other kind of judgment, enforcement is left up to the plaintiff – now known as the judgment creditor. The defendant becomes the judgment debtor as a result of the court ruling against them.
A Tough Road Ahead
Judgment creditors rarely have an easy time enforcing judgments. But in the case of a default judgment, a creditor could have a tough road ahead. Think about it. Why would a defendant not show up in court? Here are just three possibilities:
- A lack of cooperation. Some debtors failed to show because they have no plans to cooperate. They are going to avoid paying at all costs. They have avoided this thus far, and they are not going to make things easier for the creditor by participating in the process.
- The debtor has left town. Some debtors who decide they aren’t going to cooperate go so far as to leave town. They move to another county or even to another state. Creditors need to track them down before they can get paid.
- The debtor is judgment proof. Finally, there are debtors who are judgment proof and know it. Being judgment proof means you have no legitimate way to pay your debt and no reasonable prospects for the future.
All three scenarios can be difficult to deal with. However, the judgment proof scenario could be the most difficult. Someone who truly has no resources and very few prospects for the future can be very difficult to collect from. A person who knows they are judgment proof really is not motivated to participate. The person knows that you cannot get blood from a stone.
You Do Have Options
Regardless of why a person fails to show, judgment creditors looking at default judgments do have options. A default judgment doesn’t cancel the attached debt. It does not even make collection harder, per se. It is the debtor on the other side of the judgment that creates the headaches.
One of our jobs as a judgment collection agency is to look at all the options and pursue the ones that make the most sense. We have options for discovering assets, tracking down debtors, making contact with them, and working out some sort of payment arrangement.
If you have recently won a default judgment, don’t try to collect it on your own. Let us collect on your behalf. We will take on the hassle so that you don’t have to.