You won in small claims. Now collect.

CPLR § 211(b) · CPLR § 5222 · CPLR § 5224 · CPLR § 5231 · CPLR § 5004

First, give the debtor a reason to pay voluntarily.

Most judgments that get paid get paid without a levy. Once the decision arrives, send the debtor a short letter enclosing the judgment, stating the amount with interest, and giving a date by which payment must be received before you begin enforcement. Say specifically what enforcement means: restraint of bank accounts, garnishment of wages, and a marshal or sheriff. Many debtors who gambled on you not filing will pay at this stage, because an actual judgment changes the math; it is public, it accrues interest, and it will follow them for two decades.

If the debtor offers to pay over time, take it seriously but put it in writing. A payment plan agreement sets the schedule, keeps the judgment in place as security, and accelerates the full balance on a missed payment. If the debtor offers a lump sum for less than the full amount, a settlement agreement and release makes sure the discount is conditioned on actual payment and that you file a satisfaction only when the money clears.

Know what you are holding. A New York money judgment is enforceable for twenty years from entry under CPLR 211(b). Interest accrues at nine percent per year under CPLR 5004 from the date of judgment (with a lower rate for consumer debt judgments against individuals). A $5,000 judgment left unpaid for five years is owed at roughly $7,250. That arithmetic is your friend: a debtor who has no money today may have a job, a tax refund, or an inheritance in year three, and the judgment will be waiting, larger.

Docketing turns the judgment into a lien. Ask the small claims clerk for a transcript of judgment and file it with the county clerk of any county where the debtor owns real property. Once docketed, the judgment is a lien on the debtor's real estate in that county for ten years, renewable, which means the debtor generally cannot sell or refinance without paying you. For a debtor who owns a home, docketing is often the single most effective step and costs only a small filing fee.

Step one: find the assets with an information subpoena.

You cannot take what you cannot find. An information subpoena under CPLR 5224 is a set of written questions, served with a copy of the judgment, that the recipient must answer under oath within seven days. You can serve it on the debtor, asking about bank accounts, employer, vehicles, real property, and other income. You can also serve it on third parties who likely hold information: the debtor's bank, employer, landlord, or a business the debtor owns. The clerk will provide the form, or you can buy the preprinted set from a legal stationer; it must be served by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, and you must include a prepaid return envelope.

A debtor who ignores an information subpoena can be held in contempt, and many small claims courts will help you enforce it. In practice, the information subpoena to the debtor's bank, if you know it from a canceled check or a Venmo record, is the fastest route to a bank levy. Save every payment record from before the dispute; they tell you where the debtor banks.

Step two: freeze with a restraining notice.

A restraining notice under CPLR 5222 is served on a bank or other party holding the debtor's property. From the moment of service, the bank must freeze the debtor's accounts up to twice the judgment amount and hold them for a year. The debtor cannot withdraw; the bank cannot release. The notice is issued by the clerk or, if you have a lawyer, by the attorney as officer of the court, and it is served by certified mail. It must be accompanied by the exemption notice and claim forms required by New York law so the debtor can claim protected funds.

Certain funds are exempt: Social Security, disability, public assistance, pensions, and a baseline amount in any account that receives electronically deposited exempt benefits, among others. A restraining notice does not take money; it holds it. To actually collect from a frozen account you need step four.

Step three: garnish wages with an income execution.

If the debtor has a job, an income execution under CPLR 5231 directs the employer to withhold a portion of wages and send it to the enforcement officer until the judgment is paid. The standard deduction is ten percent of gross wages, subject to protections that exempt low earners entirely; if the debtor's pay is at or near the minimum wage threshold set by statute, nothing can be withheld. Only one income execution can run against a debtor at a time, so if another creditor got there first, yours waits in line.

The execution is delivered to the marshal or sheriff, who first serves it on the debtor and gives them twenty days to begin paying voluntarily; if they do not, the officer serves the employer, who must comply. Ten percent of a $60,000 salary is about $115 a week, which retires a $5,000 judgment in under a year. Slow, but it works against a debtor with a steady paycheck and no visible assets.

Step four: levy with a marshal or sheriff.

A property execution directs the enforcement officer to seize and sell the debtor's non-exempt personal property, or to take funds from a bank account that has been located, and apply the proceeds to the judgment. In New York City you may use a city marshal or the city sheriff; outside the city, the county sheriff. Marshals are private officers who charge statutory poundage, generally five percent of what they collect, plus expenses, all of which is added to the debtor's bill. Sheriffs are public officers with similar powers and typically lower fees but slower queues.

The execution is issued by the clerk and delivered to the officer with the judgment, the asset information, and a fee deposit. For a bank levy the officer serves the bank, the bank turns over the funds after the exemption period, and the officer remits to you. For a vehicle or equipment the officer seizes and auctions. Know what the debtor owns before you pay for an execution; a marshal sent to an empty storefront costs you a fee and produces nothing. That is why the information subpoena comes first.

Extra leverage against a business that will not pay.

The New York City Civil Court Act and its statewide counterparts single out business judgment debtors for special consequences when a small claims or commercial claims judgment goes unpaid. Stated in words, because the exact provisions vary by court act:

• If a judgment against a business remains unpaid for a set period after the business has been notified in writing, the creditor may bring a further action and the court may award up to three times the unpaid judgment, plus attorney's fees, where the business has shown a pattern of leaving small claims judgments unsatisfied.
• The creditor may notify the state or local agency that licenses or regulates the business, such as the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for home improvement contractors, and the agency may consider the unpaid judgment in licensing decisions.
• The business's failure to pay is a matter of public record that the court can certify on request.

Use these. A letter to a contractor enclosing the judgment, the interest calculation, and a statement that you will report the unpaid judgment to its licensing agency and pursue treble damages is often the letter that gets a business judgment paid. Where the business is a home improvement contractor, see also contractor took your deposit, which covers the licensing-agency route and related remedies. For judgments obtained by a business against another business, the same tools are available; see commercial small claims.

When the debtor is judgment-proof.

Honesty matters here. Some debtors have no bank account, no job, no real property, and nothing worth seizing. Against that debtor, every enforcement step costs you money and yields nothing, and the right move is to docket the judgment, calendar a check every year or two, and wait. Circumstances change: people get jobs, buy cars, inherit property, win cases of their own. The judgment will be there, with interest, for twenty years. What you should not do is pay a marshal or a collection outfit to chase assets that do not exist.

If the debtor files for bankruptcy, most small claims judgments for ordinary debts are discharged, and enforcement must stop. Judgments based on fraud or certain other conduct may survive, but that requires a separate proceeding in the bankruptcy court and is rarely worth it at small claims amounts.

What a demand letter does here.

Two things. Before judgment, the demand letter is the step that most often makes this entire page unnecessary; debtors who receive a credible attorney letter and understand that a judgment, interest, docketing, and a marshal are coming frequently pay before any of it happens. That is the central point of demand letter vs. small claims.

After judgment, the letter changes form. A post-judgment demand that encloses the judgment, states the accruing interest, names the bank or employer you have identified, and sets a date before the execution is delivered to the marshal converts many non-payers into payers in a week. And when the debtor offers to pay over time or for less, the DemandLetterNY payment plan agreement and settlement agreement and release document the deal so that a broken promise puts you right back where you were, with the full judgment intact. The process for each is on our flat-fee demand letters page.

When a letter is not the right tool: the debtor is judgment-proof, in which case nothing but time helps; or you already know the bank and the balance, in which case skip the letter and restrain the account before the money moves. For what the small claims limits mean for collection amounts, see small claims limits in NY; for the borough-specific marshal process, the NYC small claims guide.