Judgment Collection Agency Near Me

How to Collect on a Judgement?

1. 1. Complete the Judgement Debtor Evaluation Form Below –  This evaluation will determine if the judgment debtor is local and has any assets, jobs, friends ect.  This is also a great search to do before you file your case to determine if the debtor has any assets.  We don’t take all judgments.  We are a judgment collection agency California and only want judgments with debtors who have income or assets to seize.

      Judgment Collection Questions?

      You can contact Private Investigator & Judgment Collection Specialists Lance Casey either by phone, WhatsApp & Messenger.  Click the link below.

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Complete the Judgement Debtor Evaluation Form Below

Judgment Interest Calculator

Congratulations on winning your judgement in court.  You may have thought that when you won the judgment, the debtor was going to start paying you the money that they owe you.  Well by now you must have realized that just because you won a judgment doesn’t mean you are going to receive any money. The judgment recovery process is totally up to you.  The courts are not going to make the debtor pay you. You have to find the money and assets yourself. The collection process is just beginning. There are court forms to fill out, fees to pay to file the forms, fees to pay to find the debtor’s assets, fees to pay to serve additional documents, fees to pay the sheriff to seize the assets/property.  The good thing is that most of these fees may be recoverable. I will talk about how to recover the fees used to recover your judgment later.

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Lance Casey and I am a Private Investigator Sacramento California and a Process Server Sacramento.  One aspect of my business is judgment recovery by tracking down judgment debtors, their assets, employers, real estate, personal property and helping clients collect their judgments.  I got into the judgment collection agency business after I won a lawsuit against one of my tenants. I thought at the time that I was going to start receiving money after I won the lawsuit.  Boy was I wrong. All I had was a piece of paper that awarded me some money. It was totally up to me to collect the money. I realized that I was on my own.

I had to figure out judgment collectors hard way by trial and error.  I spent way too many trips to the court house and sheriffs office. Once I figured out how to collect on the judgment, I decided to start using my 25 years of investigative experience to help others track down judgment debtors and their assets.  I am offering Judgment collection agency tips for you to try.

I am not a lawyer.  This is not legal advice.  

Here are the basic judgment collector steps I use to collect from a judgment debtor in Sacramento County.

1. Judgment Debtor Investigation.

2. Complete/File Proper Court Forms

3. File the forms with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Civil Division to seize income/assets/property.

4. Complete/File SC-290 Acknowledgment of Satisfaction Judgment with Carol Miller Justice Center.

Judgment Debtor Investigation

The very first step I take in collecting a judgment is to determine if the judgment debtor has anything I can take from like a job, rental income, business assets, business income, bank account, real estate, ect.

The process is called Judgment Debtor Evaluation.  I utilize my over 25 years of investigative experience conducting thousands of investigations to for this evaluation.

The next step is to order a Judgment Debtor Investigation.

I use the information found in this report to determine if the debtor is still local in the Sacramento area.  I also check for local real estate, professional licenses ect. Other information that I may have on the debtor is also helpful.  I may have written the debtor a check which was deposited into the debtor’s bank account. Now I have their banking information.

The more information you have on the judgment debtor the better.  I will often go the current address of the debtor looking for clues like real estate signs, vehicle make model and license plate number.  There might be a work truck parked in the driveway with their company information.

I may visit the business of the judgment debtor walking around looking items that can be seized.  I make a mental inventory which I write down shortly after leaving their business. These items may be listed in box 1b on EJ-150 Notice of Levy Enforcement of Judgment.  The Sacramento County Sheriff Civil Division will seize the items listed on this form.  This form may be served either by the Sacramento County Sheriff Civil Division or by a Process Server Sacramento

Finding the Debtor

Locating the debtor is the first step I conduct in collecting judgments.  Since I am a Private Investigator, I have access to law enforcement data that is not available to the public.  There are sources on the internet where you can conduct which is called a skip trace search. Some of these sources are free and some are for a done for a fee.

It is my experience that the free web sites are just teasers to get you to spend money for more information.  You will run a search of a person’s name. The web site will tell that they located the person but If you want the complete record they now charge a fee.

You can also hire a Private Investigator to locate the Debtor’s current address.  Our firm provides this service and it will be discussed later on in this article.

Finding the Debtor’s Employer

This is one of my favorite collection strategies.  To collect from the debtor’s employer is called a wage garnishment.  I love putting a wage garnishment on a debtor’s employer but first you have to locate the debtor’s employer.

Locating their employer can be difficult.  I will use my Private Investigator database as my first step.  If the results identify a possible employer, I will call the employer and ask for the employee.  If I discover that the employee works there, I will hang up. I will call back and ask for the company’s address.  I will then search my databases to determine if the company is a corporation. If the company is a corporation, I will go to the California Secretary of State web site and obtain the agent for service of process.  You will need this for service of the wage garnishment.

Each state has am agency that regulates corporations and limited liability companies.  You will obtain the agent for service of process from them.

I will call the debtor’s neighbors, family members and associates.  There are laws that regulate the collection of debts and you have to be careful.  If you violate one of their rules, you can be sued. Make sure you read up on these laws before you start calling people looking for the debtor or their employer.  I will never say that I am collecting a debt when I call people. I will tell them that I the debtor is applying for a job requiring a security clearance and I am verifying prior and current employment.  You will be surprised what people will tell you when you act like you know what you are doing.

Some cases may require following the debtor from home to work.  We do it all the time. Once you locate their current employer you will have to complete wage garnishment paperwork.

Finding the Debtor’s Assets

Assets that the debtor owns can be seized and sold to satisfy the judgment.  These assets include houses, land, apartments, cars, boats, plans, stocks, bonds and many other items.  You have to find these items before you can seize them. When I say seize them, I don’t mean you can go over there and take them yourself.  The sheriff will be the one to seize and sell property. But first you have to find the property.

Real property is anything that is attached to the land which includes, houses, apartments, condos, commercial buildings ect.  The ownership record of real property is maintained by each county. For you to locate the real property that is owned by your debtor you would have to go to each county office and conduct a search.  Your judgment could be from let’s say Sacramento County California yet the debtor owns property in Florida. You would not know this unless you went to the county in Florida and conducted a search.

Some counties property ownership records are online but you would have to go through every county in the United States to find all of the real property owned by the debtor.  I use my private investigator database to locate the property owned by the debtor. My property ownership database covers the entire United States. Our firm conducts these types of searches and it will be discussed later in this manual.

Find the Debtor’s Bank Account

This is the one thing that could get you in trouble the most.  The laws regarding locating another person’s banking information are harsh.  Yes you could go to jail. Yes you could pay a hefty fine. Make sure you research these laws.  Never….Never…..Never call a bank and use deceit to locate a debtor’s bank account. Never act like you are the debtor when you call the bank…..  I mean never…. Don’t do it……

There are other ways to find their banking information.  I will use the debtor’s examination as a starting point to finding their banking information.  The debtor’s examination is also used to subpoena records from anyone that has done business with the debtor.  The debtor’s examination will be discussed later in this manual.

What Forms to Use

There are forms that will need to be filed with the court and served on the debtor once you locate the debtor, assets, employer and bank accounts.  The following are the forms that I most commonly use in the collection of judgments:

• EJ-130 Writ of Execution (Money Judgment)
• WG-001 Application for Earnings Withholding Order
• WG-002 Earnings Withholding Order
• WG-005 Employer’s Return (Wage Garnishment)
• EJ-001 Abstract of Judgment – Civil and Small
• SC-134 Order to Produce Statement of Assets and to Appear for Examination
• SC-133 Judgment Debtor’s Statement of Assets
• SC-107 Small Claims Subpoena for Personal Appearance and Production of Documents

How to Recover the Fees I Paid to Collect the Judgment

There are fees that you will have to pay to recover the judgment.  The most common fees are paid to file the Writ of Execution, process server Sacramento and the fees paid to a private investigator for research on the debtor.  The Memorandum of Costs After Judgment form is used to recover the fees paid to collect on a judgment.  You will have to list the fees on this form and file with the court. You will not be able to recover the fee paid for this manual but you may be able to recover the fee paid to our firm for conducting an asset/employment search of the debtor.

How to Conduct a Debtors Examination

This is one of my favorite strategies to use pressure on the debtor and get them to pay.  This is the way I get other people and companies involved in the debtor’s business.  This is how I find the debtor’s banking info as I told you about earlier. The short version of the Debtors examination is you are tying to find out as much information on the debtor as possible.  You are going to subpoena records from the debtor’s landlord, the debtor’s lenders, and anyone else who may have knowledge about the debtor’s finances. You will file and I will serve SC-134 Order to Produce Statement of Assets and to Appear for Examination.  Once the court assigns you a court date, you will have to have a Sacramento Process Server personally serve the judgment debtor.  You will also complete SC-107 Small Claims Subpoena for Personal Appearance and Production of Documents.  Each creditor, landlord, utility company will be served a SC-107.  This will require the creditors to send info on the debtor to the court which will be give to you.  Here is the fun part. You are asking the creditor for banking information of the debtor and they have to give it to you.  You will see an example of this in the example case. I have several forms that I attach to the Civil Subpoena (Duces Tecum) for Personal Appearance which is included in the example case.

Secret Tip.  Do you want to know the type of car the judgment debtor drove to court?  I can come to the debtor’s examination and watch the debtor as they go to their car.  I may be able to run a computer search to find the lien holder of the vehicle. Serve the lien holder asking for application and information on all payment received including copies of front and back of all checks written to pay on the vehicle.

Example Judgment Collection California Case from Start to Finish

I am titling this an example case but it is an actual case that I am working on.  The forms are the same forms that I filed with the court.

Here are the facts of the case:

In 2003, a person filed a small claims lawsuit and was awarded a judgment in the amount of $3397.61.  The person was unable to collect anything so they contacted my office for assistance. I started a Judgment Debtor Investigation and determined that the debtor owned three houses.  I drove by the houses and determined that one of the houses was listed for sale. I wrote down the real estate agents contact information.

I filed a Writ of Execution (Money Judgment) with the court.  If you are having trouble with the interest amount, take the form to the clerk and they may help you in your figures.  I forgot to cover earlier on how interest is calculated. You are entitled interest from the day that you are awarded the judgment.  Each jurisdiction may have a different interest rate. The interest is added to the judgment by including it in the Memorandum of Costs After Judgment.

Since the debtor owned property that was actively for sale, I wanted to make sure that the judgment would be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the house.  I completed the Abstract of Civil Judgment –Civil and Small Claim. I took this form with me when I filed the Writ of Execution. The clerk at the court house will stamp the Abstract of Judgment and give it back to you.  I took this Abstract of Judgment and filed it with the county recorder in the county where the debtor owned property. I made sure the clerk at the recorders office gave me a copy of the filed Abstract of Judgment.

I then called the real estate agent and determined which title company was handling the sale of the house.  Once I had this information, I decided to subpoena the title company records of the debtor. I completed the Civil Subpoena (Duces Tecum) for Personal Appearance and Production of Documents for the Title Company.  I took the form to the court clerk and the stamped it. I then had a process server serve the title company. The title company is a corporation so their agent for service of process was located on the California Secretary of State’s website.  You would use this same website when doing a wage garnishment and the employer was a corporation.

I also completed the SC-107 Small Claims Subpoena for Personal Appearance and Production of Documents for the lenders of the houses owned by the debtor.  These were also taken and stamped by the court clerk and served by a process server.  Guess what was mailed to me by one of the mortgage companies. Not only did I get all the loan information on the debtor.  I got his mortgage applications as well as banking information. The debtor had paid his mortgage payment online and the mortgage company had his banking information which they were required to give me.

With the banking information, I filed the Notice of Levy under the writ of Execution (Money Judgment) with the sheriffs department.  Guess what. The debtor had money in this account which was seized by the Sheriff and the Sheriff sent the check to me. I sent the original creditor their share of the judgment.

I have several attachments that can be used with the filing the SC-134 Order to Produce Statement of Assets and to Appear for Examination & SC-107 Small Claims Subpoena for Personal Appearance and Production of Documents. I will give you copies of these attachments if you hire me to conduct a Judgment Debtor Investigation.

Since this debtor didn’t work, I couldn’t garnish their wages.  The amount currently collected on this judgment didn’t satisfy this judgment so my next step is to have the sheriff sell the real estate to satisfy the judgment.  I doubt that it will go to that extent so I am hoping by my filing the forms to start the sale the debtor will just pay me off.

Remember that this article is your guide to assist you in collecting your own judgment.

Our firm collects judgments from Sacramento area judgment debtors.

Our firm will conduct a Judgement Collection Agency Private Investigation in the Sacramento County area.  I will utilize my 25 years of investigative experience to find the assets and money.  There is no guarantee that I will find anything. Sometimes judgment debtors are uncollectable.

How can we collect your small claims court judgment?

Questions – 800-494-1256

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