Debt recovery

Judgment is halfway. Enforcement is the other half

Most recovery instructions arrive after judgment, when the asset has already moved. A short note on sequencing.

Creditors routinely treat judgment as the end of the exercise. In practice it is the point at which the debtor's incentives change and the assets begin to move, and a judgment that is not enforced within months is often not enforced at all.

The sequencing that works starts before the suit: identify the assets and the accounts, take the security if any is available, and plead in a way that keeps garnishee and execution options open. Where a debtor is a corporate entity with a going concern worth preserving, a negotiated restructuring almost always recovers more than execution does.

Where tracing is needed, it should be commissioned as a documentary exercise and not as an afterthought. A recovery file with an asset schedule attached is worth several times one without.

Nothing on this site is legal advice or creates a lawyer–client relationship.