A Texas judgment is a piece of paper. The court does not collect it, the sheriff does not look for assets, and the debtor keeps the homestead, the retirement accounts, and a long list of personal property no matter how large the judgment is.
What a judgment does and does not do
A verdict is not a judgment. The jury’s answers become enforceable only when the court signs a judgment, and every post-judgment deadline runs from that signature. A signed judgment establishes that the debt exists, fixes the post-judgment interest rate, and gives the creditor the right to use the court’s enforcement tools. It does not identify an asset, locate one, or transfer one. That is the creditor’s work, in the same court, under the same cause number, for as long as the judgment lives.
The judgment has its own expiration date. If no writ of execution issues within ten years, the judgment goes dormant, and it can be revived only within two years after that. A writ every ten years keeps it alive.
The first 30 days
Three things can happen in the thirty days after the judgment is signed, and the winner should do one of them on day one. First, the losing side may file a motion for new trial or a motion to modify the judgment. A timely motion extends the appeal deadline from thirty days to ninety and extends the trial court’s power to change the judgment. Second, the losing side may supersede the judgment by posting a bond, a cash deposit, or other security. For a money judgment the amount is the compensatory damages plus interest and costs, capped at the lesser of half the debtor’s net worth or twenty-five million dollars, and the court can lower it on a showing of substantial economic harm. Supersedeas stops enforcement, and it stops enforcement discovery; discovery about the debtor’s net worth continues. A creditor who doubts the debtor’s sworn net worth can contest it and take discovery on that question.
Third, the winner can record an abstract of judgment on day one. Recording and indexing the abstract in a county’s real-property records creates a lien on the debtor’s non-exempt real property in that county. It does not wait for the appeal, and it is the one step that protects against a sale in the window before execution can issue. Execution itself cannot issue until thirty days after the judgment is signed, longer while a motion for new trial is pending, and not at all while the judgment is superseded.
The debtor’s shield: Texas exemptions
Texas protects more of a debtor’s property than almost any other state. The homestead is exempt without regard to value: up to ten acres in a city, and up to one hundred acres for a single adult or two hundred for a family outside one. Current wages for personal service cannot be garnished except for court-ordered child support or spousal maintenance and the obligations that state or federal law carves out. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities are exempt. Personal property is exempt up to a dollar cap the legislature adjusts, and the cap covers vehicles, furnishings, tools of the trade, and more. A seven-figure judgment against an individual whose wealth sits in a homestead and a retirement plan may be uncollectible by design.
So the question is never whether the debtor has money. It is whether the debtor has non-exempt money, and where.
Finding it, and taking it
Post-judgment discovery uses the same tools as pretrial discovery: interrogatories, document requests, admissions, and depositions of the debtor and of third parties, in the same case. The limits on the amount of pretrial discovery do not apply to it. The purpose is enforcement, and courts police it: a creditor cannot use it to retry the case, but it reaches bank accounts, transfers, and the records of the businesses the debtor controls. Bank statements and canceled checks locate assets. Interrogatory answers describe them. Third-party subpoenas reach the banks, the title companies, and the businesses the debtor deals with but does not control.
The tools then run in sequence. The abstract creates the real-property lien. A writ of execution directs the sheriff or constable to levy on non-exempt property the creditor has identified; the officer does not find it. Garnishment reaches property held by a third party, typically a bank account, and freezes it on service. A turnover order directs the debtor to deliver non-exempt property, and the records relating to it, including stock, receivables, and claims against others; the court can appoint a receiver to take and sell it, and the creditor recovers attorney’s fees for obtaining the order.
What we do
We treat collection as a tracing case. Post-judgment discovery is drafted to produce statements, not summaries, and the statements are reconstructed into a map of accounts, entities, and transfers before any writ is requested. Where the money has moved, the fraudulent-transfer claim is filed in the same court. Where the debtor has an operating business, a receiver is often the fastest route. The practice page describes the firm’s judgment-collection, turnover, and receivership work.
Questions we are asked
Their lawyer says they have nothing.
The debtor’s lawyer is not under oath. The debtor is, in post-judgment discovery. Start with the bank statements for every account the debtor has signed on in the last four years. Four years is the fraudulent-transfer window, and it is where the transfers will be.
Can we garnish his wages?
No. Texas protects current wages for personal service. Once wages are paid into a bank account, the funds can be garnished, subject to the other exemptions.
They moved everything into the wife’s name.
That is a fraudulent-transfer question, with its own deadline that runs from the transfer, not from the judgment. See the explainer on fraudulent transfers.
This page is general information about how judgment enforcement is structured. It is not legal advice. Results depend on the facts of each matter. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any other matter.