We have cited the following statistic numerous times here on our blog: upwards of 80% of all judgments filed in U.S. courts are never paid. Debtors purposely string things along until creditors throw up their hands and walk away. If you are a creditor in that position, we want you to know that it is never too late to hire a judgment collection agency.
We understand the frustration your accounting team feels over unpaid judgments. We know the tremendous amount of work they put in, only to have debtors continually resist. But we also know that judgment creditors do not have access to all the tools and strategies we utilize to collect judgments on behalf of our clients.
You and your team may be ready to give up. You might be feeling like your case is hopeless; like there is nothing further you can do to collect. Why not let us take a shot at it? We don’t get paid unless we collect, so you really have nothing to lose.
Remember Statutes of Limitations
Not only is it never too late to hire a judgment collection agency, but there are also particularly good reasons to do so. One of them is the statute of limitations attached to your outstanding judgment. Though there are exceptions to the rule, most states have a 7–10-year limit in judgments. If a judgment isn’t collected within the designated amount of time, it either needs to be renewed or allowed to expire.
We have worked with a number of clients who had no idea how close they were to the statute of limitations. We suspect a lot of judgment creditors give up long before time limits are reached. Then they go back and try to reopen their cases at a later date, only to find that their judgments have expired.
Renewing a judgment isn’t an especially difficult task. It is a matter of filing the paperwork before the expiration of the current judgment. As long as the paperwork is filed with the court prior to that date, a judgment can be renewed even after it expires.
Discovery Is Part of Our Job
We have also worked with clients who had previously given up on collecting because they were unsuccessful with discovery. What is discovery? It is the process of learning valuable information that could aid in collection efforts. Discovery involves everything from uncovering debtor assets to learning where a debtor works, how much he makes, what is in his bank account, etc.
We won’t reveal how we go about the discovery process in this post. We don’t want to give away information that could help uncooperative debtors. But we will say this: discovery is both part of our job and something we do extremely well.
As a case in point, we worked on a judgment in the recent past involving in debtor who owned an airplane hangar in another location. Through our discovery process, we found his hanger. When we let him know what we had learned, he suddenly became more cooperative.
There May Be a Path Forward
As long as your judgment has not yet expired, there may be a path forward. There may be a way to secure payment despite the fact that you and your accounting team have been unsuccessful thus far.
It is never too late to hire a judgment collection agency. If you have outstanding judgments you are struggling to collect, we invite you to contact Judgment Collectors. We stand ready to get working on your case as soon as you give us the green light to do so.