Yes No
Share to Facebook
You have an order from the Landlord and Tenant Board or the Small Claims Court.
How come no one is paying you? You had to wait 10 or 14 months just for your hearing, you
win and still no cash is coming your way. You may need professional help getting paid. Call us
for your free consultation.
A little known fact is getting an order or a judgment is frequently just a starting point for getting
paid. The Court or Tribunal has issued an order or judgment and then leaves it up to you to
“enforce” the order, which means to go get your money. Sometimes Debtors pay when the
order is made, other times you have to enforce the order or judgment. The best collection method is the one that puts money in your bank account!!!
The first and initial consideration in enforcement is do you have the correct names? A
Judgment or Order is only enforceable if the names are correct. A garnishment for Dick Taylor
will not likely be honoured against Richard Taylor. There are some workarounds and there are
occasions where it will be necessary to fix the order or judgment prior to enforcement.
For an LTB order, you have to file the order with the Small Claims Court and then begin
enforcement, with an order from the Small Claims court, you can begin filing enforcement
documentation directly.
GET YOUR MONEY
There are as many methods to enforce an order or judgment as there are debtors. Which one
is best? The one that gets YOU paid!! There are different options to fit different circumstances.
If you have limited information on a debtor, it may be necessary to start with a skip tracer to
discover more information to be used for enforcement purposes. Once you have your
information, you can select among many options, including but not limited to:
1) You can file your order with a collection agency, if you have a debtor with an interest in
maintaining their credit rating, this can be an effective way to collect. However, if your
debtor does not have an interest in maintaining a credit rating, they will simply ignore this
process and eventually the collection agency will suggest legal action to collect the debt.
Depending on your situation, you may wish to go to Legal Action directly as an
enforcement method with more bite.
2) You can file a writ of real property. A Writ is a lien, essentially, against someone’s
property that notifies the world you have an enforceable judgment against the equity of
the owner in the property. If the amount is high enough, you can actually force the sale
of the property, though that is an expensive proposition. More practically, people get
paid when there is financing on the property going in or the property is sold and the writ
is paid out. This is effective only where the Debtor owns real property.
3) You can file a writ for possession of personal property. If for example a debtor owns a
vintage automobile, you can file a writ and seize the vehicle. There are many steps to
that process but in the right circumstances, seizing a vehicle, a boat, a trailer, a
motorcycle, can be effective.
4) You can Garnish Wages, if the person is employed., You can Garnish a Bank account,
you can also garnish anyone who owes the Debtor money. As an example, if a
contractor is doing work on a property, you can garnish the property owner for all monies
owed to the debtor, redirecting those funds to you.
5) You can, when Small Claims Court resumes hearings, file for a Judgment Debtor
examination where you examine the Debtors assets under oath and where the Court
compels the Debtor to provide you with information like bank accounts, customer lists,
etc.
You can always negotiate a payment plan or lump sum settlement.
The best collection method is the one that puts money in your bank account.
When it comes to collecting on a judgment or order, knowing what options are available, the
costs, the time involved and the potential rewards all lead to effective enforcement. You need
someone willing and capable of understanding you and your Debtor and working the system to
get you paid!.
*** Critical information to consider prior to spending money on enforcement is the Debtor’s
financial circumstances. If a Debtor has no assets, no employment and no garnishable income,
(many social assistance programs and pensions are not garnishable) a Debtor may be
considered Judgment proof and money spent on enforcement is unlikely to be successful. A
Debtor can also declare bankruptcy, ending enforcement proceedings. ***