Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

Re: collection of debt

You don't have to hire an attorney, but it might be a good idea. Where are you located? I would be happy to refer you if necessary. Feel free to email me at address below or call me. I am in the office this afternoon. Cary

Re: collection of debt

If the judgemnt is for enough money, you probably should get an experienced collection attorney. However, we understand that if you are trying to collect $1000 you don't want to spend most of that on an attorney.

Collecting on a judgment is complicated (that is, it is detailed, not necessarily hard to understand, but detail-oriented). Many attorneys never learn how to do this.

It is estimated that there are TRILLIONS of dollars of uncollected judgments in America.

However, to zero in on the key problem for you, if you don't know their bank information, you can simply ASK them. You can request a summons for them to answer debtor's Interrogatories. That is a special form in the General District Court's office. If you are in Circuit Court, it is more complicated and enough money is involved you should probably get an attorney.

WHO you summon is not easy. You should probably issue the summons to an officer likely to know their bank information, but you probably need to SERVE their registered agent, as listed with the State Corporation Commission.

Of course, you can ask them any information relevant to collecting the judgment, NOT only their bank information.

However, it takes a lot of skill to ask questions in a way that people do not slip out of the question or tap dance around. Simply asking questions in a way that the person will not fool you is a skill that attorneys develop that the average person might not have.

Also, once you find out their bank information, filling out the forms for garnisiing their bank acocunt is difficult and frustrating. But it can be done. Just be prepared for the Clerk's office to reject your forms once or twice before they are satisfied. You need to include various envelopes, notices, etc., etc.

However, if you got this far, you may be on the right track. Congratulations on winning.