Is it possible to collect a judgment from an ex-tenant who left the state?
Yes. By law each state is required to give full faith and credit to the official acts and judgments of every other state. Accordingly judgments obtained in one state are entitled to full faith and credit in any other state.
However before pursuing collection of the judgment in another state, you should first determine if the debtor still has assets in the state where your judgment was obtained and proceed against these assets. You can still pursue collection in the ex-tenant’s new state at a later date if insufficient assets are available to satisfy the judgment.
However when the debtor’s assets are located in a state other than the original judgment issue state, the judgment creditor needs to decide whether to (1) transfer the judgment to the debtor’s new state in order to enforce the judgment there or alternatively to (2) initiate a new lawsuit against the debtor in the new state based upon the underlying debt. You cannot do both.
Starting over with a new lawsuit can be a time-consuming and expensive for the judgment creditor. Accordingly, most judgment creditors will decide to transfer the judgment to the new state.
The process to register the judgment in another state as a “foreign sister-state” judgment is known as domesticating the judgment. A judgment must be domesticated before it can be enforced in the sister-state. More specifically, one cannot get a writ or put a lien on any property in another state without domesticating the judgment in that state. Once the foreign judgment has been domesticated in the sister-state, the judgment has the same effect as any other judgment in that jurisdiction.
The judgment creditor, after domesticating or registering the foreign judgment, should immediately record the judgment in the property records of the county or counties where the debtor owns real estate or has other assets. By recording the judgment, the creditor establishes his priority right to any assets the debtor may have. The recording serves to reserve the creditor’s place in line for distribution of the debtor’s assets when there are multiple liens on property and other assets. In collection efforts the creditor who is at the head of the line is generally the creditor who must be satisfied first.
Any ordinary method of judgment collection including garnishments, placing liens, and executing on property can be enforced following service.