Are Civil Bench Warrants Worth Getting?
I am not an attorney, I am a judgment referral expert (Judgment Broker). This article is my opinion, based on my experience in California, and laws vary in every state. Nothing in any of my articles can ever be considered legal advice. Whenever you require legal advice or a strategy to use, you should contact a lawyer.
One of the age-old tools in judgment enforcement are debtor (and 3rd parties that know or possess about the debtor’s assets) exams at the court. A related tool is document production requests. What happens when a properly-served debtor fails to show up at the court hearing?
If you request and pay the court, they will request or issue a bench warrant (actually named a Warrant Of Body Attachment). You must pay the court or sheriff, to get a warrant issued and made active.
What happens afterward depends on what state and county your judgment debtor resides at. In some places in the US, the judgment debtor gets picked up and becomes a mandatory guest at a sheriff or court office, sometimes overnight guests, and informed they better show up at the next hearing, and if they do …