Skiptracing Your Judgment Debtor

Finding your judgment debtor, is the first step to serve them notice of your lawsuit, and later to try to recover your judgment against them. Nobody else can pay your judgment off. If you know where your judgment debtor lives, that is often the first hint toward finding their assets, which could eventually lead to recovering your judgment. My articles are my opinions, and not legal advice. I am a Judgment Broker, and am not a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.

If your judgment debtor was served at their residence or work, that is the first place to look for them. If your judgment is not recent, the judgment debtor may not live or work there any more, however those are good places to start.

Some judgment debtors try to evade creditors. Often, creditors can still find them. Start with what you know, and investigate further. For example, you may already know the address that your judgment debtor used to be at. You may be able to contact people that probably know something about them.

If you talk to your judgment debtor's current or former neighbors, family, roommates, or co-workers; do not come across in a way that might arouse their suspicions. Especially with the judgment debtor's family members, try not to arouse any suspicions, about whether or not they should talk to you, a stranger, about their family member.

The usual method to get free and informal information from those that know your judgment debtor, is to lie a little. An example lie might be "I'm a long time friend of Dan Debtor from... and I want to catch up with him, do you how I can contact him, or where he moved to?" Never lie to find a judgment debtor's banking information, however it is usually OK to find out where they live, their email address or telephone number, or workplace.

Some people might tell you a lot about someone they know, and some will even tell you about people they do not know. Listen carefully, to detect whether there are any bad feelings about your debtor. If they have negative feelings, they may tell you more useful information. Listen carefully, and gently ask them probing questions.

When you are trying to find out where a person (e.g., your judgment debtor) moved to, you are skip tracing them. The skip is the person you are trying to find. Do not try to act like a bill collector or a private investigator, or even tell them that you own a judgment against your debtor.

Often, the best source of information about a judgment debtor, is their ex-spouse or a former boy or girl friend. The next best is the debtor's friends or co-workers. Contact one or more of them, and see if you can find a sympathetic ear. Some of them may give you some valuable information.

At the same court where you got your judgment, there may be other judgments against your debtor. Finding and contacting other judgment creditors could be helpful. They might be glad to share information. Sometimes other creditors will not want to share any information, because the first judgment creditor to figure out where their debtor works or banks, gets to pay the Sheriff to levy the debtor's assets. The first to get paid usually wins.

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Vacating A Judgment Is Not A Game

In my job, I talk with many judgment enforcers. Recently some told me about an article they saw, about vacating judgments as a recovery strategy; and wanted my feedback. That article promoted a flawed concept of offering to help vacate a judgment, to get it paid quickly.

This article explains why vacating a judgment to get it paid, is not a good idea. My articles are my opinions, and not legal advice. I am a Judgment Broker, and am not a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.

What does it mean to vacate a judgment? Vacating a judgment is when a court voids, or sets aside their previous decision to issue it. The court makes a "Nunc Pro Tunc" (now for then) decision to make the previous judgment disappear. If it is vacated, that means it is like it never existed.

In theory, a creditor could bring a motion to vacate a judgment. However, it is almost always the debtor that files motions to vacate. The laws and rules covering vacating them vary by state and court. There are time limits, and courts require a logical reason to vacate a judgment. The most common valid reasons judgments get vacated are:

1) Defective service. This only works with default judgments, when the debtor claims they were not served properly, notice of the lawsuit.

2) Mistake. When a person understands the facts to be other than they are. This is not easy to prove, because ignorance of the law or negligence in researching the law, is not an excusable mistake.

3) Surprise. When a party is placed in an injurious legal situation, through no fault or negligence of their own. This is very rare.

4) Inadvertence or excusable neglect. Examples would be illness, relying on a flaky attorney, or when a court officer makes a serious mistake.

5) Void judgments. These are very rare, these are based on a lack of jurisdiction, fraud on the court, mistakes of the court, etc.

Judgments are not vacated for trivial reasons, including the convenience or wishes of the parties, or merely to settle them.

The silly strategy promoted on a few judgment-related blogs is basically, that vacating a judgment is a motivation for a debtor to pay you. "You suggest to the debtor if they pay you, a motion to vacate it can be filed with the court."

The incentive for the debtor for this flawed strategy, is that debtors want to get judgments off their credit reports. "No judgment on a credit report is better than a satisfied judgment on their credit report. Judgment owners and enforcers can make a deal to cooperate in vacating it, in exchange for getting paid."

There are four reasons why cooperating to vacate a judgment as an incentive for a debtor to pay it, is a bad idea for an enforcer especially, and also for original judgment owners:

1) Enforcers are the assignees of record, and have no standing or relation to the circumstances that caused the judgment.

2) Vacating a judgment requires a proof of service to be filed and a court hearing. Judgment satisfaction requires neither of those. The court will not appreciate any frivolous reasons to vacate it, and may wonder why the parties are wasting the court's time, when satisfying it is the correct way to settle and close the court case file. Imagine if a judge hears the debtor paid the enforcer and they conspired to vacate it instead of satisfying the judgment.

3) There are strict time limits and requirements on the causes of action to vacate judgments. This means there is a slim chance of this strategy even being possible.

4) Assignees of record, recommending and cooperating to vacate judgments might be bad policy, that could cause negative attention from government regulators, judges, etc.

The reasons and opportunity to vacate judgments is limited, and vacating them is a serious matter; and should not be used a bargaining tool.

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Credit Card Lawsuit: How To Defeat Summary Judgment

Essentially, Summary judgment will be ruled if the facts presented during the course of the credit card lawsuit proceedings are undisputed, and accurate. Many credit card companies who are pressing charges against delinquent debtors are hoping for a summary judgment because it's basically a quick way to get the money they wanted with very little cost. On the other hand, if the debtor fights against and actually defeated summary judgment, the creditor and their plaintiff are in for a long haul.

So is it possible? How does one defeat summary judgment when facing a credit card lawsuit? The short answer is yes, it is quite possible to work your way out of a summary judgment. It starts with filing a motion to strike the evidence that the plaintiff attached to his motion to declare that there are no facts to dispute. If done successfully, the court will rule that the facts are in dispute so they will not award a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff.

However, you could be blindsided by a Motion to Strike by the plaintiff is you failed to present notarized affidavits that support the evidence attached to the Summary judgment motion. In general, a custodian or an assistant custodian of reports will notarize the affidavits, attesting to the plaintiff's business practices and methods. The custodian will also personally check the debtor's own business records and account, stating the credit card debt amount.

Also, note that every state has its own notarization law so make sure you check your state's notarization law. In addition, you must check the guidelines for credit card lawsuit cases, which were filed in your state but its affidavit was notarized in a different state. If the out of State notarization does not comply with your state's own requirements, you need to strike the affidavit by a motion to strike.

When faced with a credit card lawsuit, it is critical to know more about the laws and guidelines mandated in your state before you file any documents in court, even an Answer to the summons. In some states, defendants are not required to send an Answer to the credit card lawsuit summons so to avoid any confusion or mistakes that could otherwise, derail your chances of winning the credit card lawsuit, do your own research! In addition, you can search for credit debt lawyers who can give you an idea how to deal with your creditor and quite possibly, how to negotiate a better deal with them.

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SSDI And Dead Judgment Debtors

One way that judgment debtors avoid paying off judgments is to die. When a judgment debtor dies, it is usually game over for most creditors. However, some judgment owners either check their late debtor's estate situation. Depending on what they find out, some creditors might try to recover something on their judgment by filing a claim. For judgment owners, there is only a short time after their judgment debtor's death, to file their creditor's claim on the judgment debtor's estate.

The reason you want to verify if your judgment debtor died, is so that you can file a timely claim, to include their judgment debt in your judgment debtor's estate. If you are polite and respectful, sometimes their family will pay or settle a deceased judgment debtor's debt, occasionally even if an official claim has not been filed. This article is my opinion, and not legal advice. I am a judgment broker, and am not a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.

One way to discover the death of your judgment debtor is to use the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). The SSDI includes a Death Master File, which is a list of all persons who are reported as having died, to the Social Security Administration. This list is not perfect or guaranteed, however it is usually accurate. Usually, the younger your judgment debtor or person of interest was, the more specific the SSDI tends to be.

Full access to the SSDI is not free. The Social Security Administration does not make their Death Master File records directly available online. However, the records are usually available through genealogy websites; search for "SSDI" or "Social Security Death Index". Web sites such as http://www.ancestry.com, http://www.familysearch.org, and others; allow you to search and access some historical death records for free. The best search results usually cost money.

The SSDI data includes the dead person's year of death, given (first) name, surname (last name), and middle initial. Really old SSDI records have only the year of death, old records have the month and year. The more recent the death, the better chance there will be exact and complete dates of birth and death, with zip codes. Note that if you do not find a listing in the SSDI, it does not mean the person is still living, or that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has no records on the deceased.

On publicly accessible search sites, social security numbers are now one-way. One can search by the full social security number, however the full social security number is never shown on (legal) public web sites. Paid professional databases, available for those having permissible purpose to subscribe to, may allow their subscribers to see their judgment debtor's full social security number.

Once somebody dies, their privacy rights fade fast, because of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By making dead people's social security numbers available, much fraud is prevented. To get a copy of a dead person's social security information, you must pay, and provide a copy of their death certificate.

If you know your judgment debtor is dead, search on the web for "Form SSA-711" to get an application and pay for a copy of the SS card of a dead person, or a "computer extract" (which seems only a slightly more useful option). This will likely list their place of birth, father's name, and mother's full maiden name. Another way to go is to search for form "SS-5", to get the application form for copy of a dead person's social security card.

Tips for Selecting the Best Legal Staffing Agency   Judgment Debtor Exemptions And Timelines   Should You Outsource Your Judgments?   How A Wireless Expert Witness Can Help You