Hot potato judgments are tough judgments that no enforcer, collection agency, or contingency lawyer wants to take or keep. Such judgments are "hot potatoes" because they are passed around quickly, and nobody wants to hold onto them for long. A hot potato judgment is shown to many people who turn it down. Sometimes (and eventually), such judgments are taken by an overly optimistic enforcer; who works on them for a while and recovers nothing, and either flakes, or eventually returns it.
This article is my opinion, and not legal advice. I am a judgment broker, and am not a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer. Another name for hot potato judgments is difficult judgments, which describe most judgments these days.
A common pattern is, a creditor has a very old judgment, often renewed, and they will repeat the same kind of story many times: "My judgment debtor is a fraud and transferred his properties to his relatives (e.g.) 15 years ago, and keeps his money overseas". Such creditors often finish their pitches of hot potato judgments with "My debtor is rich and my judgment will be easy to recover".
Such creditors wonder why nobody wants to buy, or try to recover their judgment on a contingency basis. Of course, the creditor does not see the big picture, and not a dime has been recovered in (e.g.) 15 years, and this is not an easy judgment to recover. This is a tough judgment that the creditor will be lucky to ever get any money from. Most creditor's memories are based on their debtor's past. It is not what the debtor used to own, it is what they own now that counts, here and now in large amounts.
If creditors were consistently told the truth, that (e.g.) their judgment debtor is poor or their assets are too deeply hidden; the creditor might not keep wasting time showing their hot potato judgment to many enforcers. Unfortunately, many enforcers turn down judgments without fully explaining the debtor situation to the creditors.
Some new enforcers, collection agencies, and contingency collection lawyers, start out taking all judgments; then they find out they are too tough, and returns them, or sometimes even goes out of business. Some enforcers only accept easy judgments, rejecting far more than 99% of the judgments they are shown.
The average judgment does not have a debtor with sufficient assets to repay part of, most, or all of the judgment. The problem is, in this economy very few are willing to try to recover tough judgments. Recovery experts want the easy ones.
For creditors with tough judgments, the battle is not over when you find someone to assign your judgment to, or find an entity to try to recover it. You might soon be surprised when they recover nothing and/or return the judgment to you.
Of course, everyone wants easy judgments. When your judgment is large and easy to recover, you can enforce it yourself, hire a lawyer, or find a recovery solution.
With big and easy judgments, judgment brokers know the right experts with the best deals and rates, that make recovering it yourself much less attractive. When you have a debtor with large assets, you hold most of the cards. However, with judgments nothing is guaranteed, and most are tough.
Collecting an Unpaid Judgment Against a Judgment Debtor Who Uses Several Aliases
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