Q. My situation is special and needs special timing. A Judgment Enforcer (JE) told me they only take Nevada judgments when there are big assets there. My debtor has assets in California and Nevada – so I planned to assign my judgment to the JE, so they can search and collect his assets in every state except Nevada.

After that the JE would assign the judgment back to me with their asset report. I would then hire an attorney in Nevada to pursue his assets there. The JE said they cannot\t guarantee that they would assign my judgment back to me, or even tell me a timetable, why?

A: When you want to control a judgment recovery, you should hire a lawyer. JudgmentBuy can for free, refer you to the right contingency collection lawyer. When someone assigns a judgment to a (non-lawyer) JE – the JE becomes and remains the new owner. JEs are not obligated to assign judgments back, nor can they promise to.

Generally, JEs have a policy of not clinging to hopeless judgments. If a JE cannot find assets and has no clue what to do to enforce the judgment – and it’s been a year or more, (if you ask the JE) they would likely return it to you, if you to cover the costs they incurred for securing any future real assets. This is not a profit item for JEs – and most want to be reimbursed for their costs. The costs are what they actually spent, not for their time, with no mark-ups.

If the JE finds property or assets in another state – and hired a lawyer to secure them – then they would likely not assign the judgment back – because this means they are working on recovering the debtor’s assets “long term”.

This is the legal position JEs must take, when they are not lawyers. If you need specific timing, you should probably hire a lawyer. We can refer you to the best. With a JudgmentBuy referred JE or contingency collection lawyer, so you only pay if they are successful. (With many regular lawyers you often have to pay, even if the judgment cannot be enforced.)