Yes. In the United States, each state’s courts are bound to respect the judgments of other states’ courts, with limited exceptions. If you have obtained a judgment in your state only to learn the debtor no longer has any assets there, you can look to assets they have in other states, such as Massachusetts.
Or, if you have not yet obtained a judgment in your own state, it may make sense to file the lawsuit here.
Either way, the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC can handle the job efficiently, ethically and, most important, effectively. With over 50 years of experience in commercial debt collections, if we can’t get you paid, no one can.
We can domesticate judgments from other states’ courts
If you have a judgment from your state’s court, we will seek to have a Massachusetts court to recognize its legitimacy through the judgment registration process. Massachusetts made this process easier in 2019 by passing the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. (In this context, “foreign” means from another state.)
The essential process of foreign judgment registration is to get a properly attested copy of your state court judgment and an affidavit from you. We file those with the court clerk, who then notifies the debtor. The debtor has 30 days to offer a limited number of objections or the clerk will issue a writ of execution.
This writ allows us to enforce the judgment by having the local sheriff seize personal property and/or forcing the sale of real estate owned by the debtor, subject to exemption..
We can also litigate to domesticate a judgment
It sounds like more trouble, but litigating to enforce the judgment has some advantages. The process gives us access to some tools that often allow creditors to skip the 30-day waiting period altogether. When time is money, this method can be preferable.
Collection agencies can’t do any of this. In a worst-case scenario, their efforts can even tip off a deadbeat that you’re trying to collect and prompt them to move their assets.
Lawyers who handle the occasional collections matter might know how to domesticate another state’s judgment, but they probably haven’t actually done it, much less done it efficiently.
We will relentlessly pursue payment
We have a wide variety of tools at our disposal to actually get you paid during and/or after domesticating your judgment. We know how to look for assets legally and pursue them effectively on behalf of business creditors. If you are trying to collect a significant business debt from a debtor with assets in Massachusetts, call 508-763-6604 or reach out using our online form to schedule an appointment.