Los Angeles Debt Collection

When a Request for Dismissal of a case is filed with the court, the difference between a Request of Dismissal with Prejudice and one without prejudice has significant meaning.

A Dismissal with prejudice means that the person suing you can’t sue you for the same thing that was originally alleged in their lawsuit that they dismissed with prejudice.

A Dismissal without Prejudice means that the filing party can refile their complaint against you at another time based on the same facts so long as it is within the Statute of Limitation. If they file a lawsuit and it is outside the Statute of Limitation, you can file a motion to dismiss the complaint.

I hope that clears things up.

In today discussion we are going to talk about what you can do with a writ of execution and how you get one from a debt collectors stand point.

To get a writ of execution from the court (which cost $25) you first need to win you case and get a judgment against someone or company. Once you are awarded a judgment, you can file for a Writ of Execution from the court against the person or entity that you have a judgment against. The Writ should be sought from the same court that awarded you your judgment.

The writs work in counties. So you need to do some research and figure out where you want to use your writ. So say your debtor has a bank account in Santa Monica, you will need to get a writ for Los Angeles county since Santa Monica is within the county of Los Angeles.

From a collectors perspective, having a writ of execution allows to levy against bank accounts, place a sheriff to obtain cash, or property.

A writ of execution is a court order granting you an attempt to satisfy a money judgment against someone.

Here is what you need to do a bank levy:

The first thing that you need to have is a Judgment against the person that owes you money. The second thing you need is banking information on them. A cashed check or banking information listed in their credit application are areas to look. If they are a business consider buying something from them and see where they deposit the check. If you lack their banking information consider hiring an expert to get that information like a collection attorney or private investigator.

Once you have your judgment and banking information in hand, you need to file for a Writ of Execution, with the court, for the county that bank branch is located in. The filing fee for a Writ of Execution is $25.00. Once you get your Writ back from the court, you need to have the sheriff office serve your writ of execution and bank levy instruction on your debtor’s bank.

Its also a good idea to call their bank and ask if their bank account is still valid. The bank will not tell you if there is money in the bank account but they can verify if the bank account is still valid. They will save you some money if their bank account is closed.

If you levy the right bank and bank account, the debtor has 10 days after they are notify by the bank that their funds have been seized to satisfy your judgment, to do something about it (i.e., contact you to work something out or prove that it is not correct)…the bank will then release the funds to the sheriff office. The sheriff office will then issue you a check for the amount seized minus a small administrative fee for the government.

Keep in mind that you can only get what is in the bank account on the day that the bank is served by the sheriff’s office. So if your judgment is for $500.00 and there is only $200.00 in the account, then all you get is $200.00. You will have to pay the bank levy fee and have the sheriff office hit their bank account again to get the remainder.

You can also only recover your judgment amount. If your judgment is for $500.00 and there is $2,000.00 in their bank account, you only get your $500.00 plus the daily interested award by the court and your writ of execution fee. Nothing more.

I hope this gives you some guidance to do your own bank levy.

With companies going under on a daily basis these days, a good question was presented: Can you be liable for charges that you put on the company credit card if the company goes under but doesn’t file for bankruptcy?

The answer is maybe. It all depends on the terms of the credit card agreement. Some agreement state that the credit card company must go after the company first before they look to you. Others give the company the right to go after the person using the card. Especially if the card was used to purchase something that you keep for yourself as opposed to being in the possession of the company.

Keep in mind that if you use the company card to purchase something for the company and pursuant to the company’s instruction and the credit card company goes after you, you can always sue your employer.

But that might not be the best thing if your company is going under anyways.