Need judgement clarification

[Don Levy]

I'm interested in working judgements in California but when I was using public records to find them I thought of something. I was looking at the Abstract of Judgement when I realized that the Abstract would show up as a cloud on the title of someone selling a property so why should they sell to me when they will get paid off to clear title? Could someone shed a little light on this and possibly tell me a better way to use public records to find judgements or liens? Any info or places to go to find answers would be appreciated.

[Rick H.]

@Don Levy - judgments are similar, but not identical, in different states.

What you ought to consider is that a monetary judgment is a court order, and an abstract of judgment is a summary which can be recorded in any county where assets are located. However, they are involuntary liens, merely found in the general index of a given county.

Because of their nature, they don't always match the vesting of real estate. That is why title companies require a 'statement of information' to be completed in order to help with their underwriting prior to issuing an insurance policy. Also, their research is typically done within proprietary tile plants, repositories not accessible to the public but effective for their purposes.

There is a market for the smallish liens that private creditors have written off several years ago as uncollectible, usually in the $1,000 - $10,000 range. If you learn how to chain title quickly, you can reverse engineer AJ's to quickly determine if the debtor has an asset in the same or other county that has equity. A smart I.T. person could write a scraper program to pull liens from online sources, and search for corresponding properties that have active triggers, like an NOD.

Once approached, creditors are shown the difficult situation and offered either a fraction of the principal value or a % split of collecting. And then, it gets really fun collecting on it. Once in control, you can then either take the passive role or the aggressive role. Many side plays, too.

Ward Hanigan does a hands on training class in San Diego (ForeclosureForum.com).