Long story short, I built a house in 01'. Contractor totally screwed it up ( on purpose) I sued him and won. He now owes me a large sum of money. Been trying to collect for close to 4 years now and I am about sick of it.
He has the resources to pay me. Just being a you know what.. I even have an arrest warrant out for him in my state but he lives right acrossed the state line so he has to be in my state to be arrested.
I won't bore you with all the details about what I have done to collect. Lets just say I have done EVERYTHING possible ( within the law) It is just REALLY hard to collect when the Sheriff of the backwoods county he lives in is his drinking buddy. If I actually told you everything these redneck county officals have done to protect this guy you would be totally amazed..

I have even contact a few of those Judgement Recovery services but I don't want to shell out 30 to 50 percent of the judgement to these services.
My question is this, has anyone here actually recovered money once a judgement has been won??? I'm beginning to think it is close to impossible..

 

Does he come into your state to work? If he does, hire a bounty hunter to catch him and serve the arrest warrant. Probably not cheap, but cheaper than 30/50%.

 

Have a friend invite him to a "prebid walkthru" in your state. Just so happens that another bidder would be a plainclothes cop. Juat find somewhere close to him and want to build a__________ (whaterer his specialty is). Good luck

 

First I'd think you might need to consult an attorney, possibly one located near him, to begin collection/lien process on his income/property? You might even find one offering a free consultation. I don't think the bounty hunter would have the authority to arrest/detain for civil judgments, as their power rests with the judicial system on bail forfeitures. But that's a good idea anyways! :-) Other than the undercover sting idea above(questionable legal/safety issues), you'd probably be better off going about it legally and hire the recovery service - whatever the cost, you'll recover more than you have so far(and probably ever will any other way), right? At least you won't continue to agonize and suffer over the debt; that alone should be worth 30-50%!! I'm wondering if there isn't a way to perfect(basically meaning to legally 'tack on') some interest over the time lapse since the judgment? Good question for that attorney...Just my opinion/suggestion of course...good luck, hope you get it resolved somehow as he certainly should pay up, and you certainly should get satisfaction(in the legal sense). Stay optomistic, it'll work out eventually and becoming miserable over it only hurts YOU, okay? :-)
PS - More good ideas below...

 

Been there, done that. I do not envy your position at all. One thing is for sure, you have to get this done before he files for the big B, or else the law states you cannot touch his assets.

One thing to look into (not sure if you have looked into this or not, just throwing out some ideas that have worked for me in the past) you have won the court case, can you get his wages garnished, or income garnishment, if he is self employeed? If that will not work, does he own any real estate? His home, etc? You can attach your judgement to the real estate so when it is sold your money will come out of the sale proceeds. That is not an immediate fix, but is the more secure, but you do have to wait until he sells the R/E to collect the money he owes. Might also want to report it to the credit report companies, so they can attach the judgement to his report.

 

We have actually already tried to do the real estate thing. He put his house ( which is fully paid for ) in his 14 yr. old sons name when he found out we were going to sue him. Now, everyone says "Hey, he can't do that". but, he did and no one we have talked to knows what to do about it. We also had him called to the magistrates office to declare his assests but he did not show up. That is how we got the arrest warrant put on him.
This joker owes me over 100 grand ( so you can see why I don't really want to pay out 30 to 50 percent to a judgement recovery service) I am sick of playing games with him. It is about time to start tightening the screws to him.
I think I am going to wait until he crosses over into Maryland, like he does every morning and then call my buddy who is a trooper and have him locked up. Then I am going to recall him back into the magistrates office again ( which I know he won't show up again). and then get yet another arrest warrant on him. I think i will just continually have him arrested until he is sick and tired of paying the bail. The magistrate said that he will continually raise the bail every single time he doesn't show.
Then I think i will look into a law suit on his county officials that continually protect him from the law.
Can you tell I'm getting pretty P.O.d now... ?

 

If someone owed me 100 grand, they'd see my face every time they turned around. And, every time he tried to talk to ANYONE, I'd break in a tell them what a no good so and so he is.

Now.......it sounds like you're on the right track. If you had already started legalities against him when he transferred ownership of the house, I'm sure there is some law that will reverse that. Something similar to old folks transferring their property so they can draw government benefits and dodge taxes.

 

Man, this sucks. Sorry to hear of your difficulties. Just goes to show that in our system you can lose even when you win

I'd see if I can get an interest rate attached to the judgement. A good lawyer would argue that as time goes on and your payment is delayed, the amount you are actually paid is diluted by inflation. There's also a punitive reason for an interest rate to be attached.

I'd go for the garnishment and seizure of assets route-- get the court to place a lien on his property. That way, if he sells the house for 200K, you'll get your full 100K back-- with interest.

The whole angle of putting it in your kid's name is a sham that any good lawyer could pick apart. Minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts. Hence, the kid cannot individually own the house.

Which means that the house would have had to have been placed into a trust of some kind, with the kid listed as a beneficiary. Have the judgement rendered agains the trustees, and the assets of the trust then become subject to the judgment.

I'd say hire a good lawyer, but these days there's so much good free information out there that I don't really see the point. There's also a lot of bad free info out there.

Do a little research and peel away the layers of the onion. You ALWAYS have a recourse. You just have to know what it is!

JMO

 

Hohn,
That is with the interest rate. I originally won 68,000 at 10% interest per year. So, I am most likely at about 105,000-110,000 by now.

We had a lawyer that was pretty good with this kind of thing. But we quickly found that all that was required was filing fundamental paperwork that we could do on our own. I also have a buddy that is a Lawyer ( but not licensed in the state of Wv ) and he is helping me out on the side for free.
The problem is all his buddies in the court system in his home county. The are all crooked as a question mark.

 

The waiting game is part of the process. We have had a lien on a property we performed work on for over three years and we are simply waiting on the judge or magistrate to sign the final assessment and transfer it to the Sheriff's office for auction. Once that happens the auction should only take about six weeks to initiate and I already have a buyer lined up as the property involved is in a good location with both North/South and East/West rail service.

If your transaction was a business to business deal then you are not entitled to any of the legal costs. It is considered a cost associated with doing business. Now, if your transaction was a consumer(you personally) to business deal you are entitled to all costs above and beyond what the court has awarded you in the judgment.
Do you have legal counsel for this matter? If not I would suggest retaining someone. At this point all the difficult work is done. Only a contingency agreement would cost you 30+% and I wouldn't think that is necessary since you already have the judgment. You just need a hungry young attorney who is trying to make a name for himself.
Sorry you have to deal with a situation like this, but trust me when I say that you are not the only one.