Posted by 101livescan on 10/1/13 11:31am
Msg #486613
CASmall Claims Results to Collect Overdue/Unpaid Debt
Who in CA has been successful in recovering overdue unpaid notary fees? and what additional fees did you recover? Been a while. The last time I had to take someone to small claims, he quickly declared personal bankruptcy and I was left with zero, but not everyone can declare BK to avoid payment.
All this debt was extinguished.
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Reply by sueharke on 10/1/13 12:06pm
Msg #486619
After that person declared bankruptcy and you had a uncollectible court judgement, did you ask a qualified tax preparer (EA or CPA) if you could deduct that money as a bad debt? If so, under which method available to you? Please note, I did not say a store front inexperience tax person to answer this question.
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Reply by Marian_in_CA on 10/1/13 12:40pm
Msg #486623
Not for notary fees. I've been lucky that I've never had to do that for notary work. I threatened once, but I've never had to actually file.
I have, however, filed and gone to court on behalf of employers and clients for unpaid service fees. I've won every single time, though there had been complications... and sometimes, once you get in there, even if your opposing party doesn't show up, you get a cranky, uppity judge.
Make sure you have everything documented and bring it with you. You may not need to pullit out, but you better have it, just in case.
Once you win a judgment, you're not necessarily done. If they still don't pay you, you have a lot of options available to you, provided they don't file for bankruptcy of course. You can have them hauled back in to court and answer to the judge. Sadly, I had one lady who just ignored her judgment. The court ordered an arrest warrant for failure to appear and we secured a lien against the title of her home, which, as we discovered, was on the market. So, the lien was placed just in time for it to show up on a title search. We ended up being paid through the sale proceeds. We reported the payment to the court which closed out the file...but the warrant was still active. She was actually arrested about a year later when she got pulled over on a traffic stop. Even though the judgment was paid, the court contacted us to tell us she had to come in. She was hit with additional fines for failure to appear and the court awarded us more interest on the judgment, even though it had been previously paid. She got a cranky judge who was pretty ticked that she ignored his previous orders and lectured her like crazy about ignoring court orders.
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Reply by Les_CO on 10/1/13 4:09pm
Msg #486642
If these people that you “loaned’ money are good upstanding credit worthy citizens, you may have a small chance of collecting from their assets…if you are first in line…. But if they are judgment proof (no assets in their name, etc.) or after they declare bankruptcy (you may not even ask them for payment) Guess what….You ain’t getting SH*T! Check first…… If in doubt say NO! It costs you nothing!
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