Judgment Records

Judgment Records

Judgment records can contain sensitive information about yourself and some of the court cases you’ve been involved in. This is likely information that you would want to keep to yourself, but judgment records are filed by the federal, state, and local courts -- which are then released for public access in most cases.

Court judgment records can be tough to forget, especially when your public record and background checks continue to bring them up. At the same time, they can be valuable pieces of information to anyone searching for more details about a specific person.

Whether you want to search your own judgment records or someone else’s, you should first be aware of what you might find and what it all means. Judgment records are public for a reason, but shouldn’t be used to publicly ridicule anyone.

What Are Court Judgment Records?

When court judgment records are filed, they can be viewed by anyone in search of more information pertaining to a specific case against someone. Judgments can be ordered for a variety of reasons, whether you’re being sued for a debt you owe, a property tax lien, or any other civil cases handled by the courts.

Judgment records will detail the court’s ruling and often the result of the judgment in terms of whether the debt was resolved or not. Judgments can either be satisfied, vacated, or re-filed depending on how the person responds to the judgment made against them.

In a satisfied judgment, it simply means the debt was taken care of. Although most judgments will remain on your judgment records for up to 10 years, a satisfied judgment will eventually be taken off.

Vacated judgments are a bit different, which basically means the judgment never existed. These judgments can be taken off your judgment records rather easily if clearly filed as such by the courts. Most of the time, vacated judgments were issued by accident and were disputed by the person.

Lastly, judgment records can be re-filed if the person hasn’t resolved the debt as intended. Many people try to wait 7-10 years for the judgment to disappear, but having it re-filed could leave it on your judgment records for 7-10 more years.

Do Judgment Records Show Up in Credit Report?

Several years ago, the answer to this question would be yes. As of 2018, after the three major national consumer credit bureaus reached an agreement with 31 state attorney generals, nearly half of all tax liens and almost all civil judgment records have been removed from credit reports.

Since this information had the possibility of lowering your credit score, this was good news for many Americans around the country -- and many saw an increase as a result.

Although your judgment records are unlikely to show up on a credit report, they are still highly accessible via your public record. Unlike your credit report, your public record is accessible by anyone and doesn’t require your consent to view.

If you are interested in viewing what judgment records show up on your public record, you can always perform a search on yourself. This could give you an opportunity to report or dispute any inaccurate information that could cause people to make improper assumptions about you.

What’s Included in Public Judgment Records?

Whether you’re preparing to conduct a judgment records search on yourself or someone you know, you should educate yourself on what you might uncover in your search. Since judgment records are a part of public records, it could contain more information than you’re ready to see.

If you were recently evicted from your property, it could show up in your judgment records. Included in the report will be your full name, your address, the name and address of the court it was handled in, the filing type, court case number, total judgment amount, and the date it was filed by the court.

In addition, any property or tax liens linked to your name could also show on your judgment records. It will display your full name, full address, where the lien was filed, total lien amount, issuing agency, deed category type, document type, book and page number type, tax lien serial number, tax type, as well as the tax lien date and recording date.

In addition to judgment records, public records can also contain the following information:

• Personal Information - your full name, social media, email addresses, and date of birth can be viewed
• Address History - including both current and past addresses you’ve lived at
• Properties and Assets - includes property value, vehicles owned, and businesses owned
• Phone Records - not only will it show current phone numbers, but also previous ones
• Arrest Records - if you’ve ever been arrested, whether you were convicted or not, the public has access to it

Public records contain much more than only judgment records, even more than what’s listed above. Still, it can save you from having to make a trip all the way to the county clerk’s office -- where you can retrieve the person’s judgment records.

How to Find Judgment Records Online

If you’re looking for a quicker and easier way to find anyone’s judgment records, you’ve come to the right place. Public Records Reviews has all the tools and resources required to perform any public records search right on our website.

If you want to dig more information about your family history or conduct thorough research on those we encounter daily, public records can help link you to the information you need -- even things you didn’t think you’d have access to.

In order to start your public records or judgment records search, follow the instructions below:

1. Navigate over to the search engine on our website
2. Enter the person’s first and last name into the boxes labeled as such
3. To enhance your search, enter the person’s last known city and state
4. Click the ‘Search’ button to unlock results
5. Search through the possible names to find the right person

Since many people are bound to share the same name -- first, middle, and last name included -- you might have to conduct some research before you come across the right person. Even if you only know the person’s first letter of their last name, you can still be linked to the right person.

When you’re ready to begin, head over to the search engine and bring out your inner detective.