From a practical perspective, what is the most reliable way to make a debtor pay?

Question

It would seem the two options to "force" a person to pay are

1. have a judge issue a wage garnishing order for one of their employers
2. have a judge issue a wage garnishing order against one of their bank accounts

For #1 what if the debtor quits their job?

For #2 would it be legal for the debtor just to just transfer the money into a different bank account? This seems like a very easily fooled method.

The court website says "Most often, people garnish wages or bank accounts." Are there other forms of garnishment?

Is selling the debt to a debt collection agency a common option?

Answer 1

The court website says "Most often, people garnish wages or bank accounts." Are there other forms of garnishment?

Garnishment means to obtain assets of a debtor from a third-party with control over the debtor's property.

The main alternative to garnishment would be to levy (a.k.a. execute upon, a.k.a. attach, a.k.a. impose a judgment lien upon) the real or personal property of the debtor which is not under the control of a third-party.

For example, to impose and then foreclose upon a judgment lien on a rental property owned by the debtor, or to have a business debtor's inventory seized and sold at auction.

If there is an appeal of the court ruling, often the debtor has to post a bond to postpone collection and in those cases, if the debtor loses the appeal, collection from the appeal bond is also a common means of collecting a debt with a money judgment.

Is selling the debt to a debt collection agency a common option?

Yes. But the going rate is about 1/3 of what is collected plus a fixed fee, and there are economies of scale that aren't present in a one off small claims court judgment collection.