Won a default judgement in my favor. Now what?

[Vaibhav Bakre]

So, a tenant caused extension damage to my property. I sued them in small claims court, and now the judge has issued a default judgement in my favor. Can someone tell me what the next steps are to get the money from the defendant?

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Vaibhav Bakre:

So, a tenant caused extension damage to my property. I sued them in small claims court, and now the judge has issued a default judgement in my favor. Can someone tell me what the next steps are to get the money from the defendant?

Getting a judgment is easy; collecting is not.

You can garner their wages or a bank account, but only if you can track them down. And if you manage to collect something from them, they will immediately disappear and you'll have to start again. It's really difficult.

Some attorneys will help with collections, but their results aren't great and you have to pay them for their time, whether they collect something or not.

My suggestion is to turn this over to a collection agency. There's no charge upfront. They keep a percentage of anything they collect, typically around 30%. The good thing about a collection agency is that it can report the judgment to all three credit reporting agencies. This will hurt the tenant's credit score, it will warn future landlords when they run a credit check, and it will prevent the tenant from qualifying for a personal loan, home loan, etc. If you get lucky, they will eventually care about fixing their credit and they will pay what the owe.