Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

If you are sure that he owns the vehicles, I assume you can file a lien against any property he owns.

Shers is wrong. You can't file a lien against personal property. If you want to collect a judgment against personal property, including vehicles, you must use a writ of execution which will direct the Sheriff to sieze the property and sell it, and give you the proceeds.

Believe it or not, he may not have title to the cars he's selling. (Otherwise, you could have the Sheriff take and sell his vehicles. But the fees for this are pricey.) However, your local Sheriff's office will be happy to perform any of the following services, and collect its fees from the judgment debtor. But you will have to pay the Sheriff's fee up front.

-- Keeper. A Sheriff will camp out on his property, open his mail, and collect any money that arrives in the mail or that is received from customers.

-- Till Tap. A Sheriff will take the money out of his cash register.

Also, be sure and make him undergo a Judgment Debtor Examination every six months. The fine book Collect Your Judgment (nolo.com) will tell you how to conduct the examination, and how to get the court to issue a Turnover Order to make the bailiff turn the guy's pockets inside out, if he is dumb enough to have any money on him. You can serve him with a Demand for Production of Documents so that he has to list the vehicles he owns.

Mr. Stone's sets forth by far my favorite approach. He also mentions one of my favorite books. Some of the cars may not be his, because he may be holding the cars on consignment, and the title to those cars actually belong to innocent third parties.