small claims court "agreement"

Yeah that's a 5 year repayment, and is a pretty long time. I don't think you have to agree to that plan; the problem with it is if he doesn't make the payments as scheduled, you're always going to be calling wondering where the money's at.

Basically the judgment itself is documentation of the indebtedness. If you are going to agree to it, you usually need to come up with a written plan stating how and when payments will be made. From there it is just like a promissory installment note, if he misses a payment you declare a default and go back to court.

The other thing, though, is that you usually get to charge statutory interest after a judgment is obtained. So if you give him a 5 year plan, then he'll pay you 5 years worth of interest.

My thought is if that is all they can pay, then what else do you want? I know if I had to pay that amount of money back I would not be able to afford even the $100.00.

True; but look at the collectibility of the debt. If the person makes good income, you can go after 15-25% of their paycheck. Suppose they make $2000/mo, then if you garnish their check you would get at least $300/month instead of $100.

re:rottweiler repayment plan...thanks much for the feedback. I should have stated that the repayment plan is an offer of the "owner" prior to going before the small claims court. It seems that a promissory note that is notarized, in case of a future need to "garnihee" might be ok,... unless I could covince person to make a bank loan to pay me in full, if I reduce the amount by $500 to $10000. Or maybe I am best served by "going" to court for theofficialjudgment ...or ? don

I was under the impression you already got a judgment. WATCH OUT if you are trying to get around going court. The SOL on personal injury is often shorter than contracts. You might only have two years to sue if it was over a dog bite.

You might think in your head, "well he signed a promissory note, and the SOL on a written contract is longer than personal injury, so it doesn't matter, right?" Wrong. There are 4 things that need to be present in order for a contract to be valid and enforceable; one of those is valuable consideration. Normally in a contract, you are giving someone money out of your pocket, and they agree to pay it back... the money that you loan out acts as valuable consideration.

In this case, there is no consideration (except a dog bite). Two years from now, if he stops paying and you try to sue; 1) you won't be able to sue over the dog bite anymore (becasue it is past SOL), and 2) the contract won't have any legal basis since there is no valuable consideration involved ... if you tried to sue over it, he could argue there was no consideration involved and the court could rule that the contract is "unenforceable."

My advice is DON'T DO IT. If he is trying to settle to keep it from going to court, make him pay you in full. Otherwise go to court, get a judgment and then there won't be problems down the road.