When someone in Ohio owes you money and does not pay you, you may need to resort to legal tactics to get the indebted party to pay up. If you take that party to court and win a judgment against him or her, there are a variety of options in terms of how you might go about collecting on the debt owed to you.
Per the Help Center for Hamilton County Municipal Court, a lien is one such option you may need to consider when collecting a judgment a court awards you.
How a lien works
A judgment lien essentially gives you a stake in your debtor’s “real property.” When you file a lien against the property of someone indebted to you, the lien effectively prevents that party from selling and profiting off of his or her real estate until the debtor takes care of the debt owed to you. Once you place a lien on a property, you must renew it every five years until you recover the debt to keep it valid.
How you might otherwise collect a court judgment
You may have other options in addition to filing a lien against your debtor’s real property. For example, you may be able to garnish a portion of his or her wages until you recover everything owed to you. You may also be able to recover your money through non-wage garnishment, which typically involves garnishing funds from an indebted party’s bank account.
While the results of filing a lien against a debtor’s property are not immediate, it does give you a potential long-term remedy in the event that you win a court judgment and now have to collect it.
