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Post-Judgment Collection Practices for When Your Debtor Won’t Pay Up

by | Apr 9, 2021 | Business Debt Collection

You’ve won your case in court, and your debtor needs to make the necessary payments to resolve the outstanding debt. In theory, it should be as simple as collecting the monies owed to you and being on your way. But it rarely is that easy. Very often your initial attorney who obviously excels at winning the case for you does not know the ins and outs of debt recovery or post-judgment collection.

In these cases, you have two options; wait patiently for your debtor to make the payments (unlikely to happen) or turn to an experienced and aggressive collections lawyer who will pursue all necessary avenues in an effort to get you paid. Which do you think will get you paid faster?

The aggressive and relentless debt collection attorneys at the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC have over 45 years of combined experience with post-judgment collection practices. If your customer has gone bad and refuses to pay the judgment that you are owed, we will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of your delinquent accounts receivables. Below are just some of the methods we will explore to enforce your judgment and help get you paid.

Bank and Real Estate Attachments

The Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC will frequently seek to attach your debtor’s bank accounts — either with notice or ex parte — in our efforts to secure payments from your debtor. While we prefer to attach ex parte when possible, as it works to prevent the defendant from removing easily disposed of assets such as cash, depending on the judge and the facts the ex parte attachment motions may be denied and we pursue the attachment then with notice to your debtor. In any event, a bank attachment is an effective means of debt recovery.

In a similar manner, we may seek to attach your debtor’s real estate, either ex parte when permitted by the judge or with notice. If the facts of the case provide that your debtor may take action on their real estate if notified of the attachment in advance, then an ex parte real estate attachment is more likely to be approved, judge dependent. A significant benefit of a real estate attachment is that it places your security ahead of any subsequent attachments or mortgages, giving you the best chance to get paid something in the event of a sale or refinance or even first mortgage foreclosure.  However, this does mean that you need to move quickly with this procedure, which is why you need our aggressive and relentless debt collection lawyers on your side.

Reach and Apply Injunctions

Per Massachusetts G.L. c.214 section 3, we can use a reach and apply injunction when necessary to obtain monies from a third party who may owe payments to your debtor. Say your debtor is set to receive regular payments from a third party for any variety of reasons. What we can accomplish through a reach and apply injunction is to have those payments bypass your debtor and come directly to you so that you can fulfill your outstanding debts based on your judgment. This process cuts your debtor out as a “middleman” and allows us to communicate and correspond directly with the third party to make sure your debts have been repaid.

Post-Judgment Discovery

When dealing with delinquent debtors, one thing that you can assume is that they are committed to not making the payments and will do anything in their effort to hide any finances that may prove that they are capable of fulfilling their debts. These types of situations are where post-judgment discovery comes into play. You legally have the power to obtain discovery from your debtor to assist in obtaining payments of adjustment, which allows our attorneys to request information regarding bank statements, tax returns, and any property or valuable assets that they may own. It is an aggressive and effective tool that has a successful track record when used to enforce judgments in Massachusetts.

Receivership

In some cases, we may turn to an aggressive, yet ethical means of debt collection known as receivership. The collection attorneys at the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC will register a complaint that, with the proper documentation and burden of proof, results in the court appointing a receiver to your debtor. The receiver can review any financial records, seize your debtor’s mail, or take any other necessary action to determine how the debtor can repay their debts. The results of the receiver’s findings can be as severe as forcing your debtor to liquidate their business in some cases. The drawback, however, is that the receiver works for all creditors of the debtor, meaning that you may have to share the assets pro-rata. However, in many instances, when effective, the mere appointment of the receiver who freezes all bank accounts and collects all mail going to the debtor may be sufficient to terminate the receivership early, getting you paid and not the other creditors.

Contact Our Team of Experienced Collections Attorneys

The aggressive collections lawyers at the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC  fight for our clients and continue fighting until either our client gets paid or no one else can get them paid. Debt recovery favors the swift, which is why we move quickly to make sure your judgment is enforced through our highly effective collection methods. To find out how our award-winning collections lawyers can assist your debt collection efforts, call 508-763-6604 or email [email protected].

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