Texas Judgment Lien – A Powerful Collection Tool
Are you at a loss as to how to collect your Texas judgment? Understand first that the process of collecting your judgment is just that, a process. So you have to start at the beginning of the process. The first tool in the process is securing your judgment lien.
What is It?
A lien is a charge again property to secure payment of a debt. It attaches a debt to real property. Then, whenever that property is sold the attached lien must be paid. Usually, it is paid from the cash changing hands in the sale of the property. Your judgment is a debt than can create a lien on the property of your debtor. But, the fact that you have a judgment does not, by itself, create a lien on your debtor’s property. An automatic lien would be nice. But, that isn’t how the game is played in Texas.
How Do I Get It?
Creating a lien from your judgment is not hard to do. You just have to prepare and file an abstract of judgment in the county records. An abstract is not a difficult or complex legal document. It’s simply a written summary of how much the debtor owes you. But, it must be properly prepared to create your lien. If your judgment is in a justice court or a small claims court, the justice of the peace prepares the abstract for you. But, if your judgment is in any other state court, you can prepare the abstract yourself.
What Do I Do With It?
When you have your abstract in hand, you take it to the county clerk for recording. The clerk enters the abstract in an alphabetical index of judgment records. Now, your judgment lien is created. If the debtor owns any real property in the county where you’ve recorded the abstract, your lien attaches to that property. The only exception homestead property.
How Long Does it Last?
Once you create the judgment lien, it continues for ten years. You can keep both the judgment and the judgment lien alive longer than ten years. The information for doing that is the topic for another article.
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On Oct 12, 2009 my X was found in contempt of court for failure to pay child support. The judge sentenced him to 120 days in county jail, then immediately paroled him for 10 years, subject to him resuming paying child support of $400/month, plus another $200/month towards the $20,000 past-due child support. (First payment is due November 1.) In court, X argued he was destitute and got a court-appointed attorney. The same evening after court I searched craigslist for X’s phone number and discovered X was advertising a mint 1990 Jaguar for $10,900! I printed out a copy of the ad, but the ad disappeared a few hours later. My question is: CAN I FILE A LIEN AGAINST HIS CAR? This appears to be X’s second vehicle because X testified in court that he “drove” a different car, and didn’t mention a Jag. Also, my attorney never asked the judge to order X to pay for court costs, process server and attorney fees — even though our previous divorce modification stipulated that whoever was found in contempt of court would have to pay attorney fees. I feel like both my X and my attorney scr*wed me. X got a free court-appointed attorney; and my attorney failed to properly interrogate X to ascertain assets (or at least force X to definitely perjure himself) — and then didn’t even ask the court to make X reimburse me for attorney fees. This isn’t right.
If you’re not happy with your attorney, I suggest that you fire him/her and hire another one.
There’s no way to file a lien against a car with a judgment in Texas. This applies whether the judgment is a child support judgment or any other type of judgment. The question, however, is whether you can seize the car in payment of the judgment. The answer to that question depends on whether the car is exempt or not. Without doing more investigation, I simply wouldn’t be able to answer that question.
Also, when dealing with child support it’s important to distinguish between an order to pay child support and a judgment for child support arrearages. If you have an order for child support, the remedy is wage garnishment. That remedy is not available in Texas to non-child support orders. Now, if your ex-spouse has an arrearage that’s been reduced to a judgment, you can pursue many other possible remedies for that arrearage judgment. But, again, there’s not enough information in your post for me to understand whether there is an arrearage judgment or not.
Hi. I have two judgments that a Judge of Peace in Texas gave in my favor against two individuals. One for unpaid rent and the other for non-performed services.
I have filed the two judgments with the counties where those persons have properties.
Is true that after filing/recording the judgment with a county clerk in Texas the following actions are triggered? 1) the judgment with debt information is reported to the main credit bureaus, and 2) a lien is automatically created on any property that the individual may have in that specific county.
About point 1) everybody agrees but regarding point 2) some people in the real estate industry in Texas says that the lien is not automatic and that only filing a “lien judgment” (obtained from a Judge via attorney) will create a property lien. If that is accurate, how can I exactly process and get a “lien judgment” and a property lien in Texas?
I will appreciate your clarification on this matter.
Thanks in advance.
It seems to me “everybody” has it backwards. When you file the abstract with the county records, the collection agencies may pick it up for their records. While they often do, they often also miss some. But, to my knowledge, the counties never report them to the credit bureaus. That is a task done by the reporting agencies themselves.
As to point two, the abstract does automatically create a lien on all real property owned in the county. But, the lien is ineffective and will have to be release if the property to which it attaches is homestead.
I cover all of the “ins & outs” of judgment liens and abstracts in my book How to Collect Your Own Judgment in Texas. The book also gives you several more very aggressive ways to collect your judgment. Waiting on the effect of a judgment lien is a very passive approach to collecting.