Landlord Shmandlord

I’ve passed off the judgment to a Collections lawyer who is going to try to collect money from the settlement that my former tenants receive every year. We set up contingency compensation where they’ll receive one-third of what is collected. At this point, I just want to get this thing over with since it has been dragging on _way_ too long.

Small claims today went much smoother than I had expected.

The defendants did not show up, so a default judgment was entered for the full amount plus $165 for filing fees. The defendants have 30 days to dispute the judgment, otherwise I can begin to collect.

To be more specific, I showed up 30 minutes early. There were two cases being heard, and the other plaintiffs showed up 10 minutes after I did. A few minutes later, the court clerk stopped in to explain that one of the defendants called to say that he was going to be 10 minutes late — but the clerk didn’t know which defendant because he didn’t leave his name.

Ten minutes after the scheduled starting time, the judge came in. He was very curt, asked for my name and asked if I knew whether or not the defendants would show. I said I didn’t. He then went out to check if they had arrived, on returning stated that he was going to enter a default judgment because they failed to show. He then sarcastically said, “Good luck collecting” and that was it. I’m not sure if he made that comment because he knew the defendants from elsewhere or simply because it’s not always easy to collect.

I am fairly confident that I will be able to collect. Besides garnishing salaries, I am going to go after an insurance company that pays the girlfriend a substantial sum every year on her birthday due to an accident she had when she was very young.

Do any Shmandlord readers have tips for or stories about collecting money from a judgment?

I have all my paperwork ready to go. I’ll post when I get back home.