Judgement Collection

I spoke this week with David Kraft (Ron Kraft from Accurate Title - his son) on Judgement Collection. He is an attorney and his main focues is on collection of debts.

He gave me the basics on collecting judgements from evictions - I will have to talk in general terms because I have lost my notes:

1. When you get a judgement at least in Jackson County Missouri through the housing court for an evicition - usually for back rent and possession, that judgement is really only valid at that court leve and you need to file that judgement with a higher court for it to be enforcable.

For example when we go to buy or sell a house the title company searches judgements and unless the judgement is paid, the seller can't sell the house as any judgements against their person must be satisisfied before the property can change hands. But unless we recertify (probably not the right term) our rent and possession judgement, it may not come up on the title companies search.

The cost to do this is under $50, I think he said $35. If you own the property in your own name, you can file this yourself, but if you own your property in a corporate entity, like an LLC, then you need to have an attorney file this for you. Because this is such a cheap cost, he highly recommends that a person recertify.

2. You also need to watch the dates on theses Judgements because they expire and fall off unless you recertify them. Some have a 5 year live and others a 10 year.

3. Your next step is to find out if the tenant has a current job. If you can locate where they work, you can file a garnishment with the courts, again yourself if you own in your name or an attorney if in a corporation/llc. The cost to file the garnishment is minimal as well.

Because there are laws on how much money can be pulled out for garnishments, you need to be aware that it is first come first served. So if for example they alreay have a sizable garnishment for childsupport, you may not get anything until the child support garnishment has ended.

So it pays to one ask for a new rental application with your tenants every year when they renew their lease so you can keep up with where they work.

Note Steps 3 & 4 are fairly interchangable.

4. Then if you can track down a bank account you can also file something with the courts to attach to their bank accounts. Then if they deposit money in the account, you get the money. But they may catch on and stop putting money in the account. Again you can do this if it is in your name, and you need an attorney if in a corporation / llc.

5. Then as a last resort you can pay an attorney to take them back to court, but in the case of tenants, it is doubtful that you would get anything but another judgement against them that they need to pay and you get another attorney bill.

If you do not have current information on a past tenant and need to track them down to serve them, he can look up things in public records and run a credit report. But past that, he cannot use underhanded means to track them down as it is illegal for a 3rd party intermediary to do so, but we can as owners and then give him the information to use.

For example, let say Joe Deadbeat was evicted 2 years ago. You can't find Joe Deadbeat, but his mother who was on his application is still in the same location and his sister who was on his application is has not moved either. We could for example call the mother and the sister with some story as to why we need to reach Joe. Maybe he won a contest and you are trying to track him down, they give up an address and a phone number. You then call him and he has to fill out a survey to get the prize sent to him. Some of the questions you would want to ask: where he works and where he banks.

So make sure you have on your rental applications:

complete name with middle initials and Jrs & Srs. & maiden names
sosial security number
date of birth
helps in running online search

current places of employment as well as past as they might go back.
current banks and copies of any checks they give you so that you have bank account #

references - solid people that don't move, like mother, father, sister

With much of the above information you will be able to file to get money out of them. And also track them down.

I have two people you can contact to learn more:

David Kraft: charges incidental filing fees up front and 1/3 of all money recovered


David A. Kraft
David A. Kraft, Esq.
David A. Kraft & Associates, LLC
www.kraftcollects.com
Representing Creditors in Colorado, Kansas & Missouri

4110 Baltimore Avenue
Kansas City, Missouri 64111
Telephone (816) 931-8000
Facsimile (816) 931-8015

Bryan Sloan: no up front fees, and then charged 50% of all money recovered as well as incidentals to come out of money recovered. Also requires that the judgement be assigned over to him.

Bryan Sloan
Judgment Recovery Solutions
816-506-5656
816-453-9494 fax

He said that one of the ways that they can track down new information is to run a credit report. But as a 3rd party intermediary it is against the law to use underhanded means to track