Why You Can't Sell Your Judgment

Every business day, folks contact me, wasting their time, by asking for me to quickly quote them a quick cash up-front sale price to buy their judgments. Some people send the judgments with no info about the judgment debtor, yet send a firm selling price demand; thinking their judgment was similar to some check in a limited kind of way.

This article is my opinion and is not, legal advice. I am a judgment solutions expert, and not an attorney. If you ever want a strategy to use or legal advice, please contact an attorney.

Which request (in percentages of the money judgment's face value) for a quick cash upfront civil judgment purchase sale price seems the most likely? 85%, 50%, 44%, 33%, 25%, 12%, 8%, 6%, or 3%? I've seen everything, along with these exact percentage requests. We also receive some "I am firm on a mandatory price for selling my judgment of Z" demands. My answer to every one of the percentage and amount requested quotes is always; not one of these are correct. The cash up-front sale price paid for a judgment consistently depends just on the available assets of your debtor.

I know the best judgment buyers across our country, and I know very well, that the amount of a judgment means nothing. I have seen a ten million dollar judgment sell for $500.00, and a ten thousand dollar judgment sell for $2,800. This is because cash upfront prices are based only on your judgment debtor.

Cash up-front judgment purchases are most often for tiny fractions of a judgment's face amount. Most folks do not want to believe that, and then spend many frustrating years trying to prove me wrong; and most of them never even collect a penny trying to sell their judgments.

One thing that tends to create false hope with judgment creditors are websites which claim (e.g.) "50% Cash Up-front paid for judgments". Such web sites are a waste of time and effort for more than 99% of judgment creditors. Anyone that offers you a sale price (more than a few pennies on the dollar) for your judgment before they can perform due-diligence on your debtor, isn't qualified or able to actually buy your judgments.

If your judgment debtor is really wealthy and hasn't hidden all their assets, you can sell your judgment for big money. If that is not the situation, it is going to be sold for pennies per buck; and perhaps you might consider attempting to find a future-payment judgment recovery professional.

With a future payment collection option, you pay nothing, most often keep ownership of your judgment; and then be paid most of what may be recovered over time. Future-payment is most often a creditor's only chance of collecting some money on their judgment.

Judgments are not the same as cash, and even a judgment against a big profitable banking chain cannot be used for collateral for any loan. These are the most popular 7 reasons the majority of judgments do not sell for very much cash up-front:

1) If your judgment debtor goes bankrupt, the majority of judgments become worth nothing.

2) If your debtor becomes poor, old, in jail, sick, died, is living on the street, or having no assets; no real buyer pays above around 1% cash up-front.

3) With really big judgments, one more problem can be, even when it's some judgment with the debtor being some bank; the majority of judgment buyers aren't rich. As an example, around 3 months ago, some judgment I received where the debtor was some huge profitable banking chain, and was for ten million dollars. Usually, 10 million dollar judgments against banks are not real, most often only cases of people having just UCC liens.

Even though this one particular ten million judgment is probably the best judgment one could own; it was default judgment with a subsequent motion to vacate being denied already; and although the judgment may very well be worth a lot more than ten percent cash upfront; it is rare that judgment buyers could afford to pay one million bucks.

That "lucky" creditor expected to get paid immediately. That creditor demanded on getting three and a half million cash upfront as soon as possible, and was very surprised that I said couldn't get a judgment buyer to pay this much that same day. I told him about future-payment collection; that would most likely would have gotten the creditor paid millions in just a short time. The creditor said no way this, and he has been searching trying to find a $3.5 million cash up-front buyer for 3 months (and counting) without getting a penny yet.

4) It always requires money and time to recover a judgment, and not a thing can be guaranteed.

5) Courts and Sheriffs are downsizing civil divisions, and are putting a lower priority on judgment recovery proceedings.

6) With our current economic mess, most debtors are now broke. Because the economy remains down, so do cash up-front judgment sale prices.

7) When the judgment is by default, it might be contested and set aside.

Although most judgment owners do not accept this, it's a waste of time to expect any firm sales price for any judgment. In the real world judgment buyers calculate their own pricing, only based on the debtor's circumstance. What you want doesn't matter, nor will where you send your judgment.


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Judgment recovery, is a collections effort, which means to recover or collect your judgment. Judgment buyers are available and can help you with your judgment collection attempts. Mark D. Shapiro of http://www.JudgmentBuy.com - Your fastest and easiest free method of finding the best expert to buy or recover your judgment.