Why Would Someone Want to Make a Judgment in Their State Into an Illinois Judgment?
Nov. 8, 2024
We work with a lot of lawyers from all over the United States and abroad. They email or call us because they have a judgment, but the defendant moved or has assets in Illinois. The out of state lawyer can not take any action in Illinois because Illinois will not allow enforcement of an out of state judgment unless certain procedures are filed. In Illinois the process is called “domesticating a judgment” and it is governed by Illinois statute 735 ILCS 5/22-650. Without going through the process, the out of state judgment is effectively worthless in terms of collection in Illinois.
However, by following this statute we can transform an out of state or out of the country judgment into an enforceable Illinois judgment. This seems like it should be an easy process, but it isn’t.
Here is what you need to know. All we need is a certified/exemplified/authenticated copy of the judgment emailed to us with the last known address of the defendant. Once this information is supplied, we prepare the requisite documents, notices, affidavits etc. and after some occasional squabbling with a clerk's office, your judgment magically becomes enforceable in Illinois.
In a nutshell, this process gives you a case number. Armed with a case number we can unleash the hounds with a variety of collection techniques. The are post judgment procedures that are called supplemental proceedings and can be found in our statues at 735 5/2-1402 and Illinois Supreme Court Rule 277.
So, a client would want to domesticate a judgment in Illinois? The answer is easy: so that it can use Illinois law to collect on it. Otherwise, it’s unenforceable in this state. Make sense? Once properly domesticated, here is what we can do.
Issue a Citation to Discover Assets to a Financial Institution. In English, we serve papers on a bank, freeze the account and have the funds go directly to you.
Issue a Citation to Discover Assets to the Debtor’s Employer (garnishment). It's harder and you won’t get a huge lump sum but if the debtor keeps working you will get paid.
Place a Lien on real property. If they have property, we get the judgment, record it and you get Illinois post judgment rate and the judgment is essentially secured by property.
Turnover of property. If we know of a specific property, (sometimes with the help of a private investigator) we can ask the court to sell it. We can also foreclose on real property as well, but it can be expensive.
Charging orders. We can make an LLC turnover distributions to you rather than the debtor.
Citation to Discover Assets to the Debtor. Most lawyers do this one first, but it's basically an action that asks the judgment debtor where is your money? Debtors are reluctant to comply and are often less than forthright. However, if you do not have any other leads, this is the way to go.
There are a number of other things we can do to collect on your out-of state judgment in
Illinois. If you have one and need help, please contact me at Doug@Illinoisattorney.com