Los Angeles Debt Collection

Generally, the community (the estates of a marriage) is liable for a debt incurred by either spouse before or during marriage, regardless of which spouse has management and control of the property and regardless of weather one or both spouses are parties to the debtor or to a judgment for the debt.

The separate property of a married person is not liable for a debt incurred by the person’s spouse before or during marriage, except for necessities of life.

There is one major exception to these rules:  Community property earning are not liable for the premarital debts of the nondebtor spouse if they are kept segregated.

On dissolution, when the spouse divide their community and quasi-community property, property received by one of the spouse is not liable for the debts incurred by the other or during marriage unless the debt was assigned to the spouse.

So you managed to get a Judgment against your debtor.  Or you won a money judgment against some one who you sued for whatever reason.  What do you do next?

Well you need to convert that judgment into money.  So how do you do that?  Well there are a wild variety of possibility depending on what you have or know about your debtor or defendant.  Is your debtor an individual or a corporate entity.

Our first focus will be on the individual.  If you have an individual debtor, you need to look through your files and see what type of personal information you have on him or her.  Ideally, you have their bank account.

If you have their bank account, you can ask the court to issue you a writ of execution and they send the writ along with your sheriff instruction to levy on the bank account.

If no banking information exist, do an asset search to see if they own any real property.  Then get an abstract judgment and record it in the county that their property resides in.  This will put a lien on their property.  The lien will last for 10 years and can be renewed.  The lien forces them to pay you off when they attempt to sell or refinance their mortgage.  Its an very effective way to get pay.

You can also consider doing a debtor examination.  A debtor examination involves subpeaning them to the court and asking them questions about their fiancial situation.