Commercial account.....

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Permalink Reply by Petra Alluis on April 15, 2009 at 1:35am

Scott,

I assume from your post that the judgment is from PA however the debtor is in IN, therefore I would also assume their assets are in IN. With that said, before you can enforce you would need to record your PA judgment in IN and I believe the fee for filing a foreign judgment in IN is about $133. That is simply for IN to recognize the judgment and enter it into their court records and does not include any fees to proceed with enforcement.

If I were you, before I start spending money you might want to confirm if this judgment is worth the time, effort and chase. Is the debtor still in business, open and operating? If yes, you might want to ask yourself if you can purchase something from the debtor therefore getting the debtor's bank account simply from a purchase. Do they have an online store, if so... consider the purchase but of course do not send them a check from your Collection company.

If they are a service business, can you locate their customer base by doing some internet searching or even posing as potential customer and asking for referrals. With this information, you could proceed to intercept money due to the debtor by a Third Party Levy.

You might even considering sending them a strong demand letter in hopes of a voluntary payment. Perhaps, if they know you are preparing to record the judgment in IN, they might drag out the checkbook to simply save the additional costs that will be added to the judgment.

I have some extensive experience in this area and would welcome you to give me a call to discuss some other tactics and recommendations on enforcement.

Respectfully,
Petra Alluis
Founder of the Judgment Recovery Institute of Advanced Learning
www.jrial.net
Owner of Global Asset Research & Recovery
www.garr-jrpros.com

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Permalink Reply by Scott Brown on July 2, 2009 at 2:15pm

Hi Petra,

Our client is finally deciding to move forward with pursuing the judgement. If you would be so kind to give us specific info on how to find out this companies bank account information. The company is still operating and they do sell products. Am I to understand if someone were to make payment to debtor company, (via check or electronically) .....if debtor comapny accepts payment, we would have their bank account information available to enforce judgement and/or possibly freeze bank account?

Thanks for your help

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Permalink Reply by Qua West on April 15, 2009 at 10:04am

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Permalink Reply by Tom McKenna on April 15, 2009 at 10:25am

I am not speaking as an attorney, but as a long-time commercial collection agency partner, who has dealt with this very issue, many times.

If judgment has been secured and is past the cursory set-aside-period, generally 22 days, the judgment will need to be "domesticated" in Allen County, Indiana, in order to be executed on, unless the judgment was in fact obtained in an Allen County, Indiana, court.

You have not indicated if your firm is a law firm, consumer collection agency, commercial agency, or both. If you are a collection agency you could attempt to collect the debt by notifying the debtor company, in Fort Wayne, of your involvement, and try to negotiate a settlement short of executing on the judgment.

Depending on the financial condition of the debtor company, their attitude towards the debt (disputed or not), and their understanding of the downside, to them, of judgment execution, you may be successful in collecting most of the dollars without the legal process.

You had not identified if you were in Indiana or not. If you are, you can attempt to use the court system to execute on bank accounts, etc. but frankly you will likely be better served by partnering with a local law firm who specializes in judgment collections.

As Mr. Alluis stated you may wish to first and foremost determine if the company appears viable. I am actually locate in Fort Wayne and would be happy to assist you to help determine if the company is viable, do a local records, check, etc.

If you have more information, you can share, I may be able to assist you more, as well.

Tom

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Permalink Reply by Scott Brown on April 15, 2009 at 11:15am

Thank you all for replying. I should have been more specific in my original post. We are in the beginning stages of consideration to pursue judgement. (It has not been filed or pursued with any court in PA or IN). Our client simply wants to figure out what their best course of action could be to get paid since the debtor has been non responsive to all other collection efforts. Our suggestion is to possibly obtain a judgement

Tom,

We are a collection agency that specializes in commercial accounts. We also have some consumer and medical clients. We offered the debtor the ability to settle the account to no avail. Their financial condition seems stable and they have never indicated that there could be a legitimate dispute.

Our agency is located in PA.

Petra,

You mention purchasing something from the debtor by check. I assume this is to get their bank account info from our cancelled check...am I correct?

Robert,

Thank you for advising of the potential problem of adding fees. Again, invoices total around $7500 and our fee is around $1500. It would be beneficial to our agency if we could legally pursue judgement inclusive of our fees. But we are not looking to be in a "world of hurt"!

Thank you all again and if the client decides they definately want to try to obtain a judgement, I will be revisiting this post again.

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Permalink Reply by Robert C. Eskin on April 15, 2009 at 10:29am

You mention addition of your fees, in order to add fees to a judgment balance the Court has to approve the addition of the fees. You will find yourself in a world of hurt if you add your fees and have no legal right to do so.
Robert C. Eskin
Executive Commercial Debt Negotiations
Hatmaker & Associates
1-800-215-7002 x-111

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Permalink Reply by John on April 15, 2009 at 10:42am

I find it peculiar that the comment did not ask the question about the type of judgment? Given the parties are in different jurisdictions, it might be assumed that the Pa. party did not have jurisdiction over the In. party and the judgment obtained may have been summary and not heard on the merits of the case. Whatever, there are more details needed to evaluate the subject.
The cost of pursuing the judgment in the other jurisdiction and the issue of ability to collect are presented and they are obviously other considerations. The question of asset search in both Pa.and In. is not fully explained. It would appear on the surface that the Creditor wants to publicly announce their claim, to embarrass the debtor?
I have always suggested that pursuit of claims/judgments lies in a test of the creditors willingness to spend "good money after bad" to achieve the desired end.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Pulfrey on April 16, 2009 at 9:30am

several things

1) If I unerstand the laws you'd need to file in federal court because both parties are in 2 jurisdictions. Getting a judgement is easy and straightforward paperwork
2) but collection of the judgement isanother issue.

my old agency advised debtors that judgements show up on credit reports as a legal collection tactic
3) depending on the residence of the debtor judgements can be continually renued every 10 years

4) dont forget your legal fees too

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