Trying to collect on a judgment..?
Thanks,
Ken
Answers:
As others have pointed out, obtaining a judgement and collecting on it are two entirely different things. I am assuming that you let a year go by because at the time you were granted the judgement, your tenant had no assets that you could seize. I am also assuming that you now want to know if your former tenants situation has changed.
The problem now is that you could easily spend $1,700 in hiring a private investigator to locate the person, and an attorney to help you collect on the judgement. You may be in a no-win situation.
Did you have your tenant fill out a comprehensive rental application when she first rented from you? Did you actually check out the information she provided? Knowing the location of relatives would be a great help in locating her and that information should have been included and checked out in the application. It is probably the only practical do-it-yourself information available to you for you to locate her without hiring someone to do it for you.
Once you find her, you will need to determine if she has wages you can garnishee (requiring a court order), a bank account you can attach (an attorney will probably be necessary), or a titled vehicle you can seize (usually requiring both an attorney and a vehicle recovery business).
In the end, you may have to chalk this one up to experience. It is an expensive lesson. In my experience, it is essential to have a prospective tenant fill out a good rental application. It is also essential that the information be checked out thoroughly before you let the apartment or house. Unfortunately, the problem you have encountered is common and savvy renters of dubious reputation know it ... and they use it to their advantage.
Good luck with your recovery efforts.
If you want to find someone, you hire a private detective. Just be sure the cost of finding them is less than your judgement AND you think they have any assets.
BOB F
getting a judgment is the easy part as you are finding out collections is the hard part, if you have all her information you can try and pull her credit report to see if you can find a new address, this assumes you had her signature to pull it the first time
there really is not national data base to find where people work, if she jumps around from job to job is hard
if you know where she is you can go down to your local court house and file an information subpoena which will require her to come into court and reveal where she works any accounts etc
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