How Do I Make Them Pay

[dmc_emc]

What is the name of your state? Georgia
This lady in town sold me a storage building that she had in her yard.
She said that I would have to clean it out. So I cleaned it out and hauled off all her junk for her.
I made up bill of sales and had witnesses to sign it too. So we all signed it.
When it came time for me to get the building, she would not let me get it.She called the police and they came over and said it was a civil matter and for me to take her to small claims court.
So I did and I won against her. She was suppose to pay me my 2500.00 back by payments per mo.
Well that has been over a year or more ago...I still have not got the first penny from her.
What do I do?

 

[dcatz]

You have three options:
1) Give it to a collection agency on a contingent fee basis (no recovery-no fee).
2) Sell it to a debt buyer (the price offered is likely to be heavily discounted).
3) Try to collect it yourself.

The first two are pretty straightforward. If you use an agency, your agreement should include a right to re-claim the assignment, if they are unsuccessful in a finite period of time – eg. 6 months to a year. You’ll only be permitted to exercise that right, if they have no installment payment agreement in place or other form of recovery active, but you should have the right to re-claim, if they’re unproductive.

I would speculate that your question only pertained to the last option but, if you are completely inexperienced in such matters, you shouldn’t ignore the first two, because you can’t even claim a bad debt write-off for tax purposes until you’ve unsuccessfully exhausted all reasonable means of recovery.

If your focus is exclusively on the third option, it’s difficult to answer without knowing more about your debtor. Unless you sell the judgment, you’ll want to record an Abstract (or whatever the comparable vehicle is in GA) to create a lien on any real property that she owns or may try to acquire or refinance.

Beyond that, without knowing what you know, anything is guess and speculation.
Is she employed? Does she operate a business? What are her sources of income, if she is neither employed or running a business? Do others owe her money for any reason? Are you prepared to “seize and sell” (personal property) (a strong motivator but comparatively expensive)? Did you tender a check at the time of sale or were you to pay at the time of pick-up? If you tendered a check, do you have the negotiated instrument?

This information and more goes into choosing an effective enforcement method. We have none of it. However, if you do, match your knowledge to the most effective and cost-effective enforcement mechanism that you can identify. If it’s a choice between effective and cost-effective, go with effective. You can have statutory costs and post-judgment interest added to your judgment.