The web has enabled several new ways to list a judgment for sale, recovery, or trade. There are three kinds of judgment listing web sites.

The first type of web listing service is a “Judgment Marketplace”, where one can buy, sell, or trade civil judgments. They let creditors dream of imaginary prices, compared to Judgmentbuy that tells the truth.

At such a site you can register for free, and they list your judgment free for a “buy it now” price. The judgment seller pays a fee of 5% when the judgment is sold. You can even trade a judgment for a fee of 5% of the difference in the sale price of two judgments. The biggest problem with such sites, is few judgments sell as most judgment owners refuse to sell for 1-10 cents on the dollar, which is what 99% of judgments sell for.

The other problem is the judgments are not screened, and professional judgment buyers do not go to such sites. Finally, trading/swapping judgments is not easy as the face value of judgments has almost nothing to do with their value. A $2,000 judgment against a rich person with plenty of available assets is worth far more than a $200,000 judgment against an old homeless guy living under a bridge.

This is now out of business: The second type of listing service is a “Judgment Money Exchange”, where one can buy and sell civil judgments.

At such a site you can register for free, and they list your judgment for sale to the highest bidder. You can specify a reserve price for the minimum bid, and a “buy it now” price.

You can pay for an enhanced listing, and you then pay a final sale fee when your judgment is sold, between zero and five percent, depending on the final sale price.

The third type of judgment assistance service is a “judgment broker”, where one can sell civil judgments, and also get paid for finding judgment leads.

At such a site, (there is only one actual and original judgment broker company) no registration is required. For free, they find you a buyer or an expert judgment enforcer, which always gets you a lot more money on a contingency future-pay basis.

A judgment broker is a referral service, so you can specify what you (reasonably) want – cash up front, more cash within a fixed (short) time period, or a lot more cash on a future-pay basis.

A big advantage of using a judgment broker, is that they screen your debtors and actively look for a buyer or enforcer for you, and screen out flakes and bad apples.

JudgmentBuy is always free. The buyer or recovery expert pays nothing up-front, and agrees to pay 10% of their possible (eventual) net profit to the Judgment Broker. Half the 10% is always paid to the referrer of the judgment lead, meaning the Judgment Broker keeps 5%.

All judgment listing sites require you to have a copy of the judgment and some details about the debtor, because only a debtor, or a debtor’s available assets can pay to satisfy a judgment.

The most common problem with using judgment listing sites, are that most judgment owners think their judgments are more valuable than the judmgnent buyer is actually willing to pay for them.

Judgments are usually sold at a steep discount. Most judgments that sell for cash up-front, usually sell for one to ten percent of their original (theoretical) value.

Often, judgment owners waste time and go with the false beliefs that some judgment listing web sites give them, that their judgment is worth a lot of cash upfront. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when a judgment is listed for more than 7% of the face value on a listing site, nothing happens month after month. Almost always, judgment creditors get more money on a future-pay basis.

The reason most judgments sell for very little cash up-front is that most debtors are poor. Another reason is that anything can happen.

Debtors can file for bankruptcy protection, lose their homes, jobs, get sick, or die. Some debtors are experts at avoiding creditors.

In many ways a judgment is like a painting. It might have sentimental value and look nice, but its value depends on who the judgment debtor is, which means the price depends mostly on who painted it (who your debtor is).

If your judgment has a wealthy debtor with massive available assets, you can sell the judgment for more money cash up-front. In this situation, you can also get paid more, and get paid more quickly, on a future-payment purchase.