Domesticating an Out-of-State
Judgment in Florida.

Your judgment is from another state. Your debtor is in Florida. Until the judgment is domesticated, a Florida sheriff and a Florida bank will not act on it. Domestication is the filing that makes your judgment a Florida judgment, and it is where enforcement here begins.

Making your out-of-state judgment enforceable in Florida

You went through a lawsuit in your own state and won. Then the debtor did what a certain kind of debtor does: sold the house, closed the office, and turned up in Florida. You have a judgment. Florida has your debtor. The two do not meet until the judgment is domesticated.

What domestication is

A judgment entered by a court in another state is called a foreign judgment in Florida, even though it comes from Georgia or Michigan rather than another country. Domestication is the process of filing that judgment with a Florida court so it is treated as a Florida judgment, with the same force and the same enforcement tools. The United States Constitution requires Florida to honor judgments from sister states; the Florida Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, sections 55.501 through 55.509 of the Florida Statutes, is the procedure for doing it.

The filing itself is modest. The creditor obtains a certified, or exemplified, copy of the judgment from the court that entered it, prepares an affidavit stating the names and last known addresses of the creditor and the debtor, and records both with the clerk of court in a Florida county, together with the filing fee. The clerk mails notice to the debtor. The debtor then has thirty days to challenge the filing, and the grounds are narrow: essentially, that the original court lacked jurisdiction or the debtor was never properly served. In practice, Florida courts sometimes entertain other objections, and a debtor who wants to delay will try. If no challenge is filed, or the challenge fails, the judgment is enforceable in Florida.

A judgment from another country is different. Those are handled under Florida's Uniform Out-of-country Foreign Money-Judgment Recognition Act, which requires a court to recognize the judgment before it can be enforced, and which allows a wider range of objections. We handle both.

Why this matters to your judgment

Until domesticated, your judgment does nothing in Florida. A Florida bank will not honor a garnishment based on it. A Florida sheriff will not levy on it. It creates no lien on Florida real estate. Once domesticated, everything opens: garnishment of bank accounts and wages, levy on vehicles and equipment, liens on property, proceedings supplementary against people holding the debtor's assets. The domesticated judgment is enforceable for twenty years in Florida, or for as long as it remains valid in the state that entered it, whichever is shorter.

Timing matters in two directions. Florida's statute of limitations for an action on a foreign judgment is five years from entry, and while domestication under the Act is generally treated as enforcement rather than a new action, the safest practice is not to test that distinction. And a debtor who has relocated to Florida is often in the middle of restructuring assets; a lien recorded this month can come ahead of a transfer made next month.

Just suppose

The following is an illustrative example, written to show how the process works. It is not a real client, a real matter, or a promise of any result.

Imagine you are the credit manager for an equipment-leasing company in Newark, New Jersey. Three years ago you leased a fleet of refrigerated trailers to a produce hauler. The hauler defaulted, you recovered the trailers, and you sued for the deficiency and won a judgment for $186,000 in New Jersey Superior Court. Then the hauler's owner dissolved the company and moved. A skip trace puts him in Fort Lauderdale, where he now runs a charter-fishing operation out of a marina near Port Everglades. He signed a personal guaranty on the lease.

You engage Florida counsel. An exemplified copy of the New Jersey judgment and the required affidavit are recorded with the Broward County clerk. Broward, like Palm Beach, has a two-step practice: the judgment is recorded first, the notice of recording is mailed, and after the thirty-day objection period lapses the judgment is filed for a Florida case number. That adds a few weeks. The debtor files nothing.

The moment the judgment is enforceable, the recorded copy is a lien on any Broward real estate in his name, and a judgment lien certificate is filed with the Department of State. A fact information sheet and a deposition follow; the charter boat is documented in his name, and its slip fees are paid from an account at a local bank. A writ of garnishment goes to the bank. A writ of execution and levy instructions go to the sheriff for the boat, which is worth more to him than the judgment. He arranges financing and pays.

The New Jersey judgment did not change. What changed was that it now spoke Florida's language.

How domestication works in Florida

Step one is the paperwork from the originating court: an exemplified copy, which is a certified copy with an additional certification of the clerk's authority. Step two is the Florida affidavit and recording, in the county where the debtor lives or owns property; a judgment recorded in one county can later be recorded in others to create liens there. Step three is the waiting period, during which the debtor may object. Step four is enforcement, which is ordinary Florida judgment collection and can be planned while the waiting period runs.

The alternative to domestication under the Act is a separate lawsuit in Florida on the foreign judgment. It requires personal service on the debtor and follows the ordinary rules of procedure, which means the debtor can litigate more issues and the process takes longer. It is occasionally the right choice, for example where the original judgment's own limitations period is about to expire, because a Florida judgment on the foreign judgment is good for twenty years regardless. Choosing between the two is part of the job.

Common questions

Which county should the judgment be filed in?

Usually the county where the debtor lives or where the debtor's property is. It can be recorded in additional counties afterward to create liens on real estate there.

How long does it take?

Roughly sixty days in most counties from recording to enforceability, longer in counties that use the two-step recording practice or have a backlog. Asset investigation runs in parallel so no time is lost.

Can the debtor reopen the case in Florida?

Not on the merits. Florida will not retry a case another state decided. The debtor can only challenge the original court's jurisdiction or the service of process, and must do so within the objection window.

My judgment is from Canada or the United Kingdom. Does this apply?

Not the same procedure. Judgments from outside the United States go through Florida's recognition statute, which involves a court proceeding rather than a clerk's filing. We handle those as well.

The discipline behind the result

Domestication is a filing that has to be done exactly, in the right county, with the right certification, followed by enforcement that has to be done the same way. We do both, and we tell you before we start whether the debtor has anything in Florida worth reaching. Call (813) 288-1881.