Two classes of judgments, two enforcement periods
The difference between civil judgments and consumer debt judgments in Illinois
How long is a judgment enforceable in Illinois? The answer used to be 27 years. There were specific points explaining why that is the practical time limit for enforcing a judgment.
As you may recall from an earlier post, a judgment is the concluding order of a court stating the final resolution of the case. If a defendant wins, the case is dismissed. If the plaintiff wins, then the final judgment serves as an order that the defendant pay a certain amount of money (the judgment sum) to the plaintiff.
Now some former defendants (now called debtors) are ornery and stubborn enough to protest payments. Other debtors might not be ornery or stubborn, but just don’t have enough money to pay the judgment (or at least not immediately). But whatever the case, the former plaintiffs (now called creditors) must take steps such as freezing a debtor’s bank account or deducting wages from a debtor’s paycheck to enforce (collect) the judgment sum.
In Illinois, state laws have changed to create two classes of judgments. Each class of judgments is governed by a different time period.
The two types of judgments are known as civil judgments and consumer debt judgments. All debts created by judgments entered before January 1, 2020 are civil judgments. If a judgment debt is entered after January 1, 2020 and was entered against a “natural person [as opposed to a corporation or some other business entity] by reason of a transaction in which property, services, or money is acquired by that natural person primarily for personal, family, or household purposes,” then it is a consumer debt judgment.
What both judgments, civil and consumer debt, have in common is they are initially good for a period of seven years from the date each is entered by the court. After that seven-year period, both types of judgment can no longer be enforced — unless the judgment creditor goes back to court and asks the court to “revive” the judgment.
Where civil and consumer debt judgments differ is in each respective “revival period.” Civil judgments can be revived up until the 20th year after the entry of the judgment. Practically speaking, that means that a judgment creditor has up to 26 years to enforce its judgment.
Consumer debt judgments, on the other hand, can only be revived one time. That revival action must be performed no later than 10 years after its entry. Thus, the time period for enforcing a consumer debt judgment is 17 years.
The upshot of all this is that if you have a judgment against you and call my office to ask for how long that judgment may be enforced, my response will almost certainly be, “It depends.”
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