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Collecting rent can be difficult enough for a landlord, when tenants don’t feel obliged to pay their rental agreement. What’s worse, however, is trying to collect a judgment from the tenants after they’ve moved out and left you with $5,000 in damage to the property and unpaid rental payments. Still, it can be done, and should be done, even though in most cases the landlord doesn’t actually collect their money for some time to come.

 

To begin, a judgment (or money judgment) refers to a legal right to collect a debt. When one person sues another person (such as a landlord taking a tenant to rent court for violating the rental agreement), they aren’t given a check right there in court, they’re merely given legal permission to collect money from another person. It’s also worth mentioning that every has their own laws governing debt collection practices, so landlords who are serious about collecting a judgment would be wise to do some research on their state’s judgment collection laws.

 

Still, there are many common practices across state lines, and some consistencies that allow for a general overview of the judgment collection process. The first step, after the judge awards a judgment, is that the judgment must be recorded by the winning party, in the jurisdiction where the court resides. Then, generally after a waiting period, the landlord can apply to the court for an Order of Execution (sometimes called a Writ of Execution), which then shows up in public records and appears on the tenant’s credit report. In some cases, the tenants are educated enough to know how damaging this is to their credit, and the threat of this alone will be enough to persuade them to write you a check.

 

In many instances, a judgment will attach as a lien to a piece of property owned by a tenant, for example their car (or real estate, if they own any). You can also petition the court to garnish tenants’ wages, and be paid back from the tenants’ pay check each month. These methods prove the most effective for a landlord to collect tenant judgments, but there’s an important prerequisite: before you can try to seize assets or garnish wages, you have to know of their existence!

 

There are two excellent reasons for screening tenants carefully: first, you can avoid most of the rotten apples through thorough tenant screening, but secondly, you can discover their assets and sources of income long before you even have a dispute with them. Have each tenant fill out a comprehensive rental application, to help you get started with screening them, and before even considering signing a rental agreement with them.

 

Generally speaking, judgments stay on record for twelve years, and the landlord can extend the judgment for an additional twelve years if desired. Further, landlords are entitled to collect interest for elapsed time before collection, so even if several years pass before you can collect the judgment, the chances are strong that they will eventually be forced to pay you.

 

Whether you collect the judgment yourself or hire a collection agency, as a landlord there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to collect those judgments from tenants who ruined your rental property, violated your rental agreement, and left you with a stack of their bills to pay. It may take time and patience, but time you have, and the pleasant reassurance that at some point in the next twenty-four years, those tenants are going to want that judgment off of their record.

 

Article Source:  Brian Gregory – www.EzineArticles.com

 

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