Unlike regular civil judgments, a family law judgment does not expired after 10 years requiring the party with the favorable judgment to renew it. Family law judgment last longer and are the exception to the 10 year rule. The exception was legislatively created for divorce cases.
Archive for the ‘Collection’ category
Family Law Judgments
December 25th, 2010Intellectual Property Judgment
August 1st, 2010After you have successfully obtained a Judgment in a trademark, patent, and copyright infringement case, the work begins to enforce your money judgment. If you have done the research, you should know that there is not a lot of statute or case law on the topic. Collecting on a trademark, patent, or copyright judgment could be one of the most difficult task if you are not familiar with the collection process.
If the debtor is a business and is still in business then you have all your normal means of collection at your disposal. If you want to go after the intellectual property themselves and place a lien on them or get a turnover order to seize the assets then it gets a little trickier. The best thing to do is to contact a collection attorney like ourselves to ensure that you do everything correctly.
Turnover Order
July 25th, 2010A Turnover Order is a request to the court to order a judgment debtor to turn over personal property to the sheriff that is of value to enforce a money judgment. Personal property such as property that requires possession, documentary evidence of title to property, a debt owed to the judgment debtor, chattel paper, documents of title, instruments, securities and money.
If awarded, the Court will order the judgment debtor to hand over the personal property to the sheriff so that they can execute on it to enforce your money judgment.
Period of Judgment’s Enforceability
July 5th, 2010A money judgment or a judgment for possession or sale of property is enforceable for 10 years after the date of judgment is entered. The ten year period may be extended if the judgment is renewed in a timely manner. Thus, unless the judgment is renewed or a statute provided otherwise, on expiration of the 10 year period the judgment cannot be enforced, all enforcement procedures under the judgment or a write or other issues under the judgment must cease, and any lien created in enforcing the judgment is extinguished.
Setting Aside Judgment
May 27th, 2010If you find out one day that a creditor has obtained a judgment against without your knowledge, the first thing you need to do is get a copy of the Judgment. The Judgment will give you the case number and the court the case was filed in. In Los Angeles county with that information you can go to the court’s website and see all the documents filed in your lawsuit.
Most likely what happens is that they filed a lawsuit against you, some how got serve against you without you knowing about it, file for a default and submit a 585 declaration to prove their case, and the court entered a judgment against you.
You should go to court and get a copy of the complaint, proof of service, 585 declaration, and the judgment so that you can file a motion to set aside the judgment based lack of notice.
Most court will probably grant your motion because judges want to give you your day in court to defend your case. If the motion is grant, the judgment is erase and you get to defend yourself in court.
The threat of filing a motion to set aside a judgment can also be used as a bargaining chip to settle the case.
Filing the motion is something that you can do or hire an attorney to do.
Credit Card Debt Help
May 20th, 2010Is a collection agency threatening to sue you on a credit card matter that you owe money on? Here are somethings that you should check. When you receive a letter from the collection agency or especially from an attorney, check to see who the attorney claims he or she represents. If the attorney says that they are representing someone other than the credit card company then that means that your debt was probably sold to someone else.
That could be potential good news for you because if your credit card company sold your debt to someone else, the new owner of your debt will have a tough time to prove their case if you file an Answer to a lawsuit they file. That is right. If they sue you, just file an Answer. If you file an Answer, they will not be able to prove their case at trial unless they can get a witness from the credit card company, which is unlikely because the credit card company has sold your debt. When they sell your debt they will only provide the buyer with a declaration that the buyer can use to prove their case if you don’t file an answer.
If an answer is filed, the buyer has no one who can authenticate the documents that prove your debt. At trial you can ask the court to rule in your favor.
If you are not sure what to do or need an attorney who can walk you through the process, contact our office and ask for Don Sakaida. My phone number is 310-473-9153. I can see if your case qualifies for these situation and we can go from there.
Judgment Enforcement
May 4th, 2010There are many people and companies out there that have spent a ton of money hiring an attorney to sue someone or another company due to a business dispute, a violation of one’s intellectual properties rights, for violations of employment practices, or whatever the case may be. After this long protractive fight, you manage to get the judge or jury to award a judgment in your favor. Upon getting this award, you were elastic.
Your lawyer sent you his last bill and you are left with a piece of paper that you have won x amount of money against Y, the your arch nemesis. Your lawyer has bill you for a ton of money for all the work that he has down. AFter the cases is over he is devoid of any real suggestions on how you can collection or enforcement this judgment. In a way he kinda just sneaks away knowing that he has billed you for a ton of money for a piece of paper that is of no real worth unless you can collect on it.
Well if you are in this predicament then you need to find a collection attorney who specializes in judgment enforcement. They are the only real individuals that can help you turn that piece of paper into real cash. Don’t waste your time because a collection will only charge you more and then go to the attorney for help. Go straight to the attorney and you will save more money in the long run and guarantee that you get more money.
These attorney have a full understanding on how to enforce judgments. They can find assets, place liens, levy bank accounts, place keepers, and so much more. Its the only way that you will be able to enforce your money judgment into some call hard cash. It might even help pay off the attorney fees that you sent to win your case in the first place.
If you need our recommends, Google “sakaida & bui” and you will find a judgment enforcement law firm that will serve you in the Southern California. They will even give you a free consultation. Just send them your judgment and what information you have on party that the judgment is against. Good luck.
Locating Debtors
April 20th, 2010Everyone wants to collect on debt that is owed to them. The key is to know where they are currently residing. If you can’t locate them then you won’t be able to serve them with the lawsuit to get your judgment. Then after you get your judgment, you will need to know there whereabout to try to enforce it.
So as you prepare for the process of collecting, gather as much information as you can and try to keep information on the location of the person that owes you money.
If you lack such information, you might want to consider getting the services of a private investigator. Most collection attorneys will also have some investigative tools at their disposal to assist you in this endeavor as well. So make sure you ask them.
Post Judgment Interest
March 28th, 2010In California Post Judgment Interest – which is interest that accrue after you have obtained a judgment against someone or entity is as follows:
The Judgment amount multiplied by 10% divided by 365 days = the daily interest amount.
So say you have a Judgment against someone for $5,000.00. The daily interest that is added to your judgment is: 5000 x 0.10 / 365 = $1.37
So for each day that you judgment goes uncollected after it was awarded, you earn $1.37 or $1.37 is added to your judgment for each day that it goes uncollected.
Judgment And Where You Reside
March 9th, 2010Can a judgment by recorded in a state where you do not reside in?
In order for a Judgment to be entered against you, a complaint must be filed and you must be served with a copy of the complaint. You must be within the jurisdiction of the court to be probably served. For example, if a lawsuit is filed in California, you cannot be served with the California lawsuit in Nevada. You have to be served with the lawsuit while in California.
Once service has been achieved and you failed to respond to the complaint or the court awards a judgment against you then the judgment can be recorded against you even if you no longer reside in California.
Recording a judgment is limited to counties. So if someone has a judgment, they can elect to record the judgment against you in Los Angeles county, Orange County, Ventura County, San Diego County or any other counties within California. All they need to do is file for an Abstract of Judgment and record it.
So, yes someone can record a judgment against you if you NO LONGER reside in a state if you were properly served in that state prior to moving out of that state.
Someone can also take a Judgment in one state and have it recognized in another state. Its called a Sister State Judgment but to get it recognized, they have to serve you with a copy of the Sister State Judgment within the jurisdiction of the Sister State court. The only motivation to do something like that would be if there are assets that they can attached to recover their Judgment or if you reside there.
