Collecting Judgements

[Andres Piedra]

I got a judgement about 3 months ago and contacted the debtor about 2 weeks after the judgement to start collecting. I emailed him yesterday and offered to set up payments or to reduce the debt by a certain percentage if paid by a certain date. He's one of those people who probably feel like a victim in everything they screw up.

Long story short, he responded via email and told me he will never pay because he's not wrong and told me not to contact him again.

Am I required to stop contacting him? This is in NC. I cannot find anything in the laws that state I must cease and desist without some kind of legal cease letter, but I'm also not a lawyer.

[Rick H.]

While I certainly acknowledge that judgment recovery is not one of my core areas of expertise, I do have a little experience.

The one and only AJ that I took an active effort to collect on myself was back rent from an evicted tenant. I purchased a book from Nolo Press (Nolo.com) entitled "How to Collect Your Judgment." I learned a lot from both the book and participating in the process.

Ultimately, I collected payments by having the tenants employer served and requiring them to deduct up to 25% of each pay period's wages. It was easy to find his employer as he was USPS letter carrier.

Incidentally, I've also hired collection agencies to collect on judgments however anyone considering this move needs to know the realities of the business. My experience has been that they take a very passive role, perhaps sending a few collection letters to the debtor and reporting to the three credit repositories. Typical fee is 50% of amount recovered.

Early in my career, recovering a few thousand dollars was important; my time, I thought, no so much. The value of learning about debt collection was, in hindsight, much more valuable than the debt itself. It also helped me better appreciate what a hassle it is to collect on unsecured debt as well as form my opinions about stolen rent money. Did I mention my bias toward trust deeds?